Life After Drinking Myself Into Kidney Failure and the Murder-for-Hire Scheme That Landed Me in Federal Prison

David (00:01)
She's looking past me, for me. Because I lost so much weight, I had like no fat on my face, it was just bones. And she's just like, and you could just see the horror in her eyes when she was just like, hey, you look good. And I'm just like.

Matt (00:20)
I'm Matt Handy and you're listening to My Last Relapse. David Phillips. How you doing? I'm doing good. How are you? I'm good. Thank you for coming. I love it. I really appreciate it. That's a long, how long is the drive?

David (00:25)
It was about eight and a half hours straight.

Matt (00:34)
Okay, from where? Wichita ? Yeah. Okay, how's the weather out there right now?

David (00:40)
It was nice and rainy two days ago, was snowing about a week ago and 75 three days ago. So Wichita tends to have everything. had Christmas, was, I think the day before Christmas it was 73 and then the day after Christmas we got flurries. we get a little bit of everything.

Matt (00:58)
That's cool. Yeah. Yes. The weather here is fucking bipolar.

David (01:03)
Switched off for you too.

Matt (01:05)
We had a tornado watch last night. Yeah, yeah.

David (01:09)
Yeah, I saw that. That made me feel like I was in Wichita.

Matt (01:13)
Yeah, well, okay Okay, a little bit about David David is ⁓ What do you say ex-inmate ex-con? What do you say? Incarcerated?

David (01:22)
Doesn't matter. Formally incarcerated, I'm a family man,
I don't do the, I don't full on agree with like the justice friendly terms in many ways. I like to call it as it is and like, what's the term? There's a term that just bothers me. It's a, justice involved. And I'm like, and like we're trying, like with our ministry, we get people, we do everything we can to change the perception of somebody that's been inside and we were pretty good at it. But justice involved just sounds just like,

Okay, so what do mean by that? Yeah. I'm like, I'm a felon. Okay, why don't you just say that? That's kind of the reaction I typically get from it. I understand the reason of trying to...

Matt (01:59)
Colloquially change perspective. Yeah, but everybody knows. Yeah. Yeah

David (02:03)
It is what it is. So just approach it the right way and you deal with it a little bit easier, I think.

Matt (02:07)
Yeah, think the framework, the language, the importance of language has been lost today. Yeah. You know, and it's like people want to like delude themselves by calling it something different. like, dude, you're saying the same shit. Yeah. Just now it sounds gay. Yeah.

David (02:20)
I yeah, I agree. So I do not disagree with that.

Matt (02:24)
But, okay, so, formerly incarcerated, felon, federal prison, and in recovery.

David (02:26)
Four million card. Felon. Primal prison. Yeah.
I haven't used for quite a long time. Quite a long time. But yeah.

Matt (02:38)
and you got a ministry. I have a ministry. And you've been out for five years. Yep.

David (02:43)
Little bit over five years. So I got out, I got released December 28th, 2020. got, the judge ordered my release. Yeah. So the judge ordered, it's crazy. So many things happened on December 28th. I mean, it's a, it's a weird thing where 12, 23, 20 was when I got, that's when I got the judge ordered my immediate release and Bureau of Prisons likes to take five days so I can spend one more Christmas in prison. So they waited that time to let me out.

Matt (02:49)
That's the day I was arrested. Yep.

David (03:11)
Thankfully, I didn't know. We were on COVID lockdown. I had, you know, they weren't sending our mail out. I got mail, I got home and literally in January, it was like January 19th or 20th, I got like four letters I wrote my way. I mean, just cause they refused to send stuff out.

Matt (03:23)
Yeah, yeah, California's terrible about it, too. It was a three month delay. Yeah. For them to receive it and then it was like six weeks to get it back. Yeah. It was crazy. Okay, so let's start. I like to start with people's childhood. Okay. As Dr. Shaw says, nobody escapes their childhood unscathed, but you could start wherever you want.

David (03:36)
Yeah, mean, childhood, I think pretty standard childhood. No real trauma I can think of. mean, my dad's a minister. He started an inner city ministry called World Impact that's focused on really just helping people throughout the inner cities grow from a spiritual level. had schools, all that kind of stuff. So that's kind of what I grew up in. So it's a Christian ministry. I grew up as a Christian, did not practice Christianity by really any means. mean, that's a whole different debate that's not worth getting into. So I grew up in that, went to high school, did that, college, went to college, started off young with the family, had my first son when I was 18, 19. So then went to school full-time, worked full-time during college, was able to graduate. Then I started at a Global 500 Nissan North America at the manufacturer and kind of was part of their executive training program. You know, yeah, I mean, there's really nothing crazy about my childhood. mean, everything was pretty normal. I have two brothers, two older brothers, mother and father. And, you know, that's the kind of layout of it. I am the youngest.

Matt (05:01)
So you're the youngest?
Okay. Did that feed into anything? Like, being the youngest child?

David (05:08)
I don't know, probably. I could get away with a lot. So I mean, was rebellious throughout, mean, absolutely. So my brothers were, and they're twins. So they were always their own people and we were never close in the sense of, because they were four years apart and they had each other and were attached to the hip until they were married basically. So then, yeah, mean, being the youngest, I don't think there was anything that really changed things, but I did, my parents had the, grew up or raised my brothers and they didn't do really anything stupid. So I was able to take advantage of my parents' naivety with that and I was pretty good at that. I had a lot of fun. High school was a lot of fun. Made my poor choices as we all do in high school, but nothing too crazy and then followed that pattern for quite a while.

Matt (06:05)
Okay. So post college you were training executives.

David (06:11)
No, I was in an executive training program. So basically, it's a management training program with Nissan North America. I got sick of it real quick because it was corporate life. I met with one of the executive vice presidents who I worked directly under. So I was moving up really quickly. And he was just like, hey, you're on track to be one of the youngest VPs in this company. I'm like, that's awesome. What time frame? And he's like, I I don't want to over promise. But I think within seven or eight years, I'm

Matt (06:40)
Yeah

David (06:41)
I'm like, what the hell? that's like, and then I was like, okay, but if I got to that level, what does that pay? And then he, and it was like low six figures. And I'm just like, that's just not for me. don't think so. Then I like that made my mind up. Okay. I need to get into sales and start making money. because you know, at that point was had a young kid was trying to do that. And then also growing up, you know, we never had that expendable money where it's just like, I want to go buy a new pair of nice shoes. That kind of didn't happen.

Matt (07:10)
Yeah.

David (07:10)
You know, so, and that's, know, with the pastor salary, that's what happens.

Matt (07:14)
Yeah. Well, with an honest pastor. Yeah.

David (07:17)
True. I believe that.

Matt (07:19)
That's a whole nother conversation.

David (07:21)
yeah, that's a whole different. I definitely agree with you on that.

Matt (07:25)
Yeah. But you know what? Prison ministry is amazing. Like here in Texas, it blew my mind. Like they are really big about prison ministry in Texas. then I went to somebody's prison ministry, whatever, right? And it was like, he'd been doing it for 40 years. He symbolically like passes Bible off to his son and his son's now taking it over. I was sitting there like holy shit. They had like a full production stage and lighting cameras like like this is really fucking cool. Yeah

David (08:01)
Texas is really supportive. I mean, the Federal Bureau of Prisons doesn't want anything to do with it. They're against it all. So they want as few people coming in. States have tended to be very receptive.

Matt (08:07)
Sure.

Yeah, what about Kansas? Okay.

David (08:15)
Kansas is awesome. Goes, you know, working with them, there's no one's particular that's made it harder, if you know what I mean. But, you know, in general, they have been very open to things that work. which seems like anyone would be open to things that work, but there's so many systems within the government, as we know, that if something works and works well, that doesn't mean they're going to do it. So. It's like, whose job are you taking? Who's going to lose their salary if we do this? That kind of stuff is what you have to worry about. The Secretary of Corrections in Kansas, name's Jeff Samuda, has been awesome. Like, fantastic. He's all about, and I truly believe he really wants to lower recidivism. he really does. Like, when I met with him the first time, you could just see in his eyes, he was just like, huh, okay. I mean, you could just tell he actually cared. And then he took steps to, to,

Matt (08:58)
Rare. the process.

like create a pathway.

David (09:10)
pathway for it to work and see what happens. And he's not, that's not, we're not special. He's done that for others. And, you know, so then you do that. And then we also do Bible studies within the prison system. we have a, our goal. So, I mean, back to my background actually, cause that'll make more sense. So then I worked in sales after Nissan for a year. Then I started a marketing company, a medical marketing. So basically think of yellow pages for plastic surgeons. It was called breast implants, USA.com basically show up as high as you can on the search engines. From there, we sell listings to doctors just like the yellow pages. We send leads. Hopefully those leads convert into paying patients, which then makes it so the doctors will then pay us again for a year. Simple model. It worked. It worked well.

Matt (09:58)
So it's a clearing house. Yeah.

David (10:00)
And that went away. Google made changes to make that just not be... Well, yeah, mean, so they made it so... We were initially so powerful from a search engine standpoint that an individual website could not beat us if they wanted to. So like we would always be one, two, three, whatever it was. And then Google started making the local changes where individual practitioners could then rank well for their city. like, know, Plastic Surgery Houston where we used to be number one, doctors started showing up above us. So then we saw that, thankfully, we had the foresight to see that decently ahead of time. So then one client that was on our referral website was like, hey, can you guys do our SEO? And I was like reluctant at first, because I'm like, is going to be a lot more dealing with plastic surgeons, and they are notoriously pains. And yeah, just total pains. They really are. That's not all of them.
There are several that I love and think are awesome and are good friends. So I mean, I don't want to make it too broad of a statement, but there are some that are just so detail oriented about the stupidest of things that they're like, instead of me ranking well, what I'm paying you to do, I would rather my website look a little bit differently, which is going to hurt me on Google. So things that don't make sense. So I didn't want to really deal with that.

Matt (11:23)
So an aesthetics doctor wanted aesthetics over performance. Absolutely. Yeah, for sure.

David (11:30)
Yeah. And it was things that they would notice. some of them would just be so in a retentive about it that they would just be like, this has to be this way. But they're also plastic surgeons. So they're used to getting their way. So everybody bends down for them and just like, yeah, you're the best. You're the best. You're the best. And we worked with some of the best. I mean, we worked with guys that are on E. We worked with guys that invented big, big parts of implants and et cetera, types of surgery. So I mean, we had the best of best clients in many ways and I get it, but I also was like, well, you can't tell me to do this if I'm telling you that this is gonna hurt your rankings and then bitch to me in two months that your rankings aren't good enough, because I already know this is what's gonna happen. So there was a fine line with that. But.

Matt (12:17)
Yeah.

David (12:21)
We transitioned into that and we were very good. mean, it's one of those things where there's several companies that do it and we're all doing pretty much the same thing. So for some doctors you would just kill it for and other doctors you do the exact same thing and for whatever reason it didn't work out. Sometimes there were younger doctors so their website wasn't as old, so it didn't have as much value with Google so it was harder to rank them, things like that. But then you also run into some that should be ranking well and don't. So I mean, it's several different companies that are trying to achieve the same thing. And it's kind of a cutthroat industry. I mean, it really is. Everyone puts on the face of, what's up, man? Hope you're doing well. But secretly, like, screw you. We hate you. We were hated, definitely, because we were aggressive. I'm all about sales. I was always about sales.

And what set us apart was we worked very, very good from a search engine standpoint and a marketing standpoint. We had our flaws, absolutely. There's no such thing as a perfect company. But what I thought set us apart was when I was at Nissan, like we were, they were so focused on customer service, so focused on do the small little things to make customers happy and they'll love you. So like my goal was different from, we wanted to get our clients to rank well, we wanted them to show up high on the search engines, all of that, but I'm like, if a doctor sends in something like a before and after photo for their website, if we can get it done in 20, 30 minutes, compared to our competitors who take a week and a half to do it, they're gonna tell their friends. Stupid things like that. And so we just had a department dedicated, we had a really good customer service department and really was we were dedicated to doing the big stuff like, you know, ranking them high and all that, building beautiful websites. But also when they have small requests and changes, we just get it done. Yeah, yeah. And then that's that that's how you build the loyalty with the office staff and then then the doctors. And if you make that, I mean, my theory was always if you make the office staff, if you make their jobs easier and make them happy, then if the if the doctor comes is like, I'm thinking about doing this.

Matt (14:24)
like the micro services.

David (14:41)
They're like, no, we love them. Why would you do that? We worked with this other company, which I won't name names, obviously, and they were a disaster. And now it's like they go to you and, you know, why would you switch this? And usually that would be very helpful for us if there was every issues.

Matt (14:54)
Yeah, for sure. Yeah, customer service.

David (14:56)
Yeah, so then we, you know, so we switched into website design, SEO, pay-per-click, social media, so all the kind of standard digital marketing stuff. And we're good at it. Cool. Yeah. So that then led, so like that background is where our training and what we do for prisoners on the inside and on the outside, really that core of business that I was experienced and really plays a big role of how we're doing things differently, I think, in prison. So, you know, there's a lot of ministries that go in and share the Word of God. And obviously, I feel I'm a strong Christian, believe it. And I think that is pivotal to any long-term success. That's true for somebody in prison. That's true for somebody outside. It's a debate I'm always open to having, but we don't need to, obviously. But I think that my life changed when I was at my worst and I attribute that all to Jesus Christ. Absolutely. So for me, that is the truth, not my truth, that is the truth. And I think that's pivotal, but I also think that for anybody in recovery, which a lot of people don't realize, recovery in prison is not easy. Like there is more drugs, more alcohol, it is easier to get meth, heroin, et cetera, in prison than it is in most

Matt (16:20)
Yeah, yeah Yeah And it's flooded. Yeah, and I was explaining this to somebody how there's like two separate worlds in prison There is like the institutional world and then there's our world and it's two total two different objectives two different like hierarchies two different power systems two different rules like And there are millionaires that are made in prison. yeah straight up off drugs. Yeah

David (16:21)
I mean, it's just simple. Yeah, and cell phones.

Matt (16:49)
And cell phones. That's the merging of those two worlds.

David (16:54)
That's people envision.

Matt (17:09)
It's like, how do they get the box in if they're putting it their butt?

David (17:13)
I'm like, the cell phone's kind of can't fit, hopefully.

Matt (17:19)
I've seen some crazy shit though with cell phones fitting in crazy places. yeah. I know.

David (17:23)
Yeah, Then people choose to talk on them. That's nice.

Matt (17:26)
Yeah. Yeah, but I mean, we're injecting and snorting drugs over in somebody's butt too, though.

David (17:32)
Yeah, that's true. But it was in a baggie, so...

Matt (17:34)
Yeah.

David (17:38)
But yeah, so it's like my favorite thing is talking to people that don't know about the system and being like, yeah, I mean a high majority, 90, 95 % is coming in through the guards or staff. And they're like, no, there's no way. And I'm like, okay, first off, think about the worst job you could have. Like when you really think about it, like where would you want to spend your time? No cell phone, typically for prison guards, around people that want to hurt you if they possibly can.

Matt (17:48)
Literally babysitting adult

David (18:07)
Baby-sitting adults and then have and getting paid crap and then Being asked to put your life on the line and really go after somebody who has the power on the streets do stuff You don't want to know for sure very likely And there were some really good Honest CEOs that meant well did well were respectful and They just like the ones that came in and said look this is I know I'm in prison. I mean like we would get a new guard

Matt (18:11)
Yep.

David (18:35)
and you'd get the ones that like at the, that are just Marines that need something to do. And they're just, you're just like, Oh God, this guy's going to learn as, you know, it sucks. And then you got the others that come in and say, look, my job is to walk around, da da da. I don't need trouble. I don't need trouble. And if I see you doing something stupid, then you're an idiot. You're making me do something stupid. I have no problem sitting in my office all day. I'm going to jingle my keys real loud when I walk around. So y'all know, don't make my job hard. You leave me alone. I'll leave you alone.
And those were the good ones.

Matt (19:06)
Yeah, I would say that, yeah, I would say that like 90 % of guards just want to go home. Yeah. You know, they just want to go home. They want to get their paycheck. That sucks. And we had this prison guard. I won't say his name, but he had like a new house, a boat, a new BMW. Yeah. Like dude, it was obvious. Very obvious. Yeah, very. It so funny, dude. Yeah. And like at the time, this was2009 to 2012 and cell phones were like a thousand bucks. Yeah.

David (19:41)
Yeah, they were around there at the places I was.

Matt (19:43)
Well, and they were still flip phones. yeah. Yeah. Yeah There was no like this is like when the transition between like the mass like introduction of smartphones to the general public and so like we were still getting like little Nokia phone. Yeah, like that Much easier to get in. Yeah. Yeah Yeah, well they fit yeah, in certain places pretty well, too

David (19:59)
They're easier to get in than an iPhone.more bendable.
Uncomfortable to walk, but you

Matt (20:13)
Yeah, hey, somebody's gotta make the sacrifice.

David (20:16)
Yeah, the fight, so like when we're during COVID, they locked us down. obviously, so we, you know, that's its own story. That was so just crazy. So we were cell living, mixed pretty high max guys and lows, et cetera, is administrative prison. And then, so they're blaming, they're making every visitor go through hell. Every nurse go through hell that comes through. Then COVID happens. We are on.
Lockdown no visitors for eight months none of that and more drugs than ever before yeah more cell phones than ever before they're like and obviously they they don't they don't want to know that but they knew that yeah, it's just crazy.

Matt (20:58)
Yeah, shit is the dichotomy inside of prison. Yeah, yeah. It's so funny. It's crazy. Yeah, I mean, I tell people all the time that it's like, there were years when I was on the streets where I would tell people like being in prison is so much easier than this.

David (21:05)
Yeah, I don't disagree with that. There's people that, I mean, when you think about it outside of, mean, even inside you get that, you know, but there's a lot of peace in prison if you know the system. And by no means do I ever want to go back. Me either. But I'm not saying that, but I could understand where somebody who's been down for 20 years that knows nothing about the outside, we're on, deal with that. I mean, I have a guy who just got out and he's my, he's, a couple years older than me. He's been down 31 years. And he is doing phenomenal. He did everything right in prison. He's gonna be fine. He's one of those that's gonna be fine for sure. But I had some guys in the feds that like he was another dude. He was down for a long time and he did everything he could to get back because he was older and he's like, I don't need to learn everything out there. mean, I'm gonna go eat some real food and that's it. And then Rob DeBang.

Matt (21:47)
She is.That'll put you back. That will. Really fucking. Did he? Yeah.

David (22:12)
He waited for him. He busted like Shawshank, dude. It interesting.

Matt (22:18)
Yeah, I knew a dude that did that in wheelchair because he couldn't get his healthcare taken care of on the streets. Yeah.

David (22:23)
Yeah, you need good healthcare. Well, not good, but healthcare.

Matt (22:26)
Well, he had like back problems and he needed surgeries and shit like that and he just couldn't get it handled and so he robbed a bank and sat in front. He like went to the teller, told him, give me the money and then he like just sat there. They were like, what are you doing? Like, I'm waiting. You'll see. It's crazy.

David (22:47)
Makes you dependent on it in many ways for the guys that have been there.

Matt (22:51)
Yeah, yeah, if you become institutionalized to that level too, it really, like, if you can become a somebody in there and then come out to the streets and be a nobody, it's like, why would they want to stay out here? Especially, you know, it's like, in an ideal world, everybody would have things set up, right? Like, you exit prison with an exit plan, there's like treatment plans in place, like reentry, all this stuff, and the money's there. Like, dude, the money's definitely there.

CDC went from CDC to CDCR and recidivism went up. right It was like you add the rehabilitation part to it. You dump a ton more money into it. It gets worse Yeah, it's like that whole thing that's going on in California right now They dumped 24 billion dollars into solving the homeless problem and they quadrupled the homeless issue. Yeah Right. Yeah, the money's there. It's the implementation of the programming and the intention around the programming

David (23:45)
Yeah, it's the intention. think it's creating a vision for the men and women inside that there's hope after. Because for some, I mean, that's what blew my mind. So like when I was in, you know, I was well off financially. We were good on that front. I was just shocked with the people that I met in county. So I had to spend the first, was my case was out in New Orleans in LA. So first 35 days was in San Bernardino County. West Valley was just...

Matt (24:20)
Valley. Yes. I've done time there. So West Valley is a trip because they don't walk with you. Did they walk with you? Like if you ever got a ducket, they would send you and they would like...

David (24:34)
Yeah, yeah, no, yeah, they don't walk with you. don't walk with you. Yeah.

Matt (24:37)
That was a trip to me. Because you can literally walk into other mods.

David (24:40)
Yeah, you can go anywhere like with visiting, they're like, go to this place and just open it up and you go. And the first time I just was like, okay, I like I'm doing something wrong here. So yeah, like their first 35 days or 40 days, something like that. flew to, then they, two US Marshals come take me to New Orleans, which was, that's the, know, Fed time was easy time compared to New Orleans. New Orleans was just a beast. It was Plaquemines Parish. So like an hour and a half outside of New Orleans. And I've always not been a fan of the city just in general from going, you know, going there from a business standpoint, because we had a lot of trade shows there and it just, I just never really liked the city for whatever reason. Nothing in particular. And then I'm just like, that's just kind of ironic that this is where I'm at. But I'm just like, let's just, whatever.

Matt (25:31)
Okay, before we go any farther with that let's talk about what happened. Okay, okay?

David (25:35)
Charged with use of interstate commerce to commit murder for hire. So essentially what they charged me with or said I did was there was a guy who, and I to be careful of how I phrase about him just because it is what it is, but a guy that used to work for me, he says he was a partner, he was not a partner, he was an employee or independent contractor. So he used to work for me, started his own company. They said I hired somebody to have him killed because he was becoming a threat to my business was more or less. what I looking back at it, there's a couple things that I, wait, first off that whole don't talk to the cops thing. Yeah, don't do it. So for me, I didn't do this, which was where I was like, okay, let's clear this up. Cause this makes no damn sense. I don't know what you guys are talking about. And I admitted to one thing, which was loaning one guy $5,000 for a marijuana grow that guy.

Who he actually used that money to buy meth transport it to New Orleans? Which admit I mean obviously they would have charged me very much for that if I had any knowledge I didn't yeah had no idea about that whatsoever then from there The belief from my standpoint in my lawyer's standpoint was his goal was to essentially extort me He knew I had money. I never hid that I had money. I mean that was never really a concern of mine for people to know it. was LA and that's kind of the lifestyle. And I was running a company and all of that. My biggest, the error I made, obviously I made poor decisions throughout my life and in no way am I not guilty of a lot of things. This, there is not a way in the world I would hire somebody to have somebody else killed. And I'm just like, so that concept was kind of blowing my mind. I was. the cops were like, do you want to talk? I'm like, yeah, I want to figure out what's going on. I admitted to that $5,000 thing, which was true, and I was happy to tell the truth. I'm like sitting here like, let's clear this up. that was one part of the, there's three parts of the crime. One was and then pecuniary value or something like that. admitting that, so then they flipped that 5,000 into 30,000, which is, that's a story within itself, which is, mean, so I can look back at this, and I will say this, because again, without going to prison, I don't know where I'd be now. So without going to prison, I grew up, and faith and family are the two biggest things in my life now.

Matt (28:00)
wow.

David (28:19)
Without going to prison, there's not a way in the world I would have a relationship I have with Christ. And I firmly believe that, and that's a big part of my life. I will also say that prior to all this, and this is, know, prior to all this, I had tons of warning signs to get right with God. And I firmly, I, and if you don't believe in God, tons of warning signs to get right, I guess. But I had in January, so I was partying before. You know, that's drinking, little bit of cocaine, smoking cigarettes. My motto is just live life and all that. That's fine. Empty in many ways, happy with the business. It's going fine. Growing and doing great. Then January 2015, I had a stroke and a grand mal seizure. So I was at my house.

Matt
How old were you?

David
37. Yeah, I think 37. I'm doing the math in my head. It was 2015. No, 35. So then stroke and a grand mal seizure. it ends up, my kidneys were failing, which I didn't know about. The signs of that obviously are high blood pressure. High blood pressure then makes your kidneys fail faster and so on. So then that high blood pressure plus smoking a pack of cigarettes a day, plus I was drinking, not really using coke much at that point, led to grand mal seizure stroke. Thank God my wife was with me. I was home. That's where I broke my shoulder too. So I'm like, I don't remember anything about this. So I'm having, I'm having like, I guess I like tried to walk and fell face first into the like into the corner of our bathtub area. So shattered my shoulder, go to, you know, I don't remember anything. They take me to the ER. Doctor tells my wife, get his kids here, say your goodbye. He's not going to make it. He's not going to make it. He is, he's done.

Matt (30:14)
my gosh.

David (30:18)
So she's obviously frantically calls and gets the kids or not. She doesn't do that yet. She calls tells everybody what's going on and then there's the debate of I mean do kids really need to see that? Obviously that's one thing. Then within about three days they transfer me from the Marina Del Rey Hospital which is in California, West LA, Marina Del Rey, transfer me to a bigger hospital, Kaiser and Sunset, who then say he's gonna make it but likely not remember things. They might be. It's a giant.

Matt (30:51)
It's the cancer center, right? Yeah.
It's huge. One of my like really best friends growing up ended up in that, it's across the street from the Scientology temple, right? Yeah. That's a crazy thing to do.

David (31:05)
Fielding's huge too. Money. My God. So there then they say, okay, he's going to make it, probably not remember much and you might have to reteach him how to walk. I mean, all the signs of a severe, it was a severe stroke. So they put me into a self-induced coma. So I was in a coma. don't again, remember really anything from that timeframe. Then it ends up, was, you know, I got released about 10 days later, really nothing from the

Matt (31:27)
Yeah.

David (31:35)
There was the physical exhaustion, the tiredness, which was mentally, I was kind of just like out of it in the sense of just like, what the hell's going on? So I left there pretty much considering unscathed. I had it broken. They had to redo my rotator cuff or whatever, which they didn't even know it was broken until like day four. And then, you know, get out and have that reality that my kidneys are done. So I was, I think,
18%, 20 % functionality. So I was already stage five and they're like, you got to start dialysis. And we need to start planning for that. And I'm like, well, let's just see. You know, that's kind of the first warning sign from God, major one. There were several before that of like, get right with me. And that's kind of how I look at it. Then throughout that next year, I'm trying to, I'm not trying, I am being very healthy with what I eat, don't drink, don't, I was still smoking.

Don't drink don't do anything like bad in that sense outside of smoking cigarettes year later My functionalities now down and I was my hope was if we can maintain it at about 20 % For the next eight years and I'm stubborn as hell ⁓ Then I'm just gonna then I'm good and we can stay there and deal with this later was kind of my thinking plus The doctor I had wasn't really the best to be honest at that point and I was just kind of like so you're saying I can start dialysis now at 20 % or I can wait till it's at like 10 % and start then. Like why should I start doing this now was kind of my theory. And I was so just naive from a medical standpoint because my wife was like, you need to start doing it. I mean, she made it her hobby to learn anything and everything about transplants, kidney disease. She has textbooks, she took courses and so on.

So that year goes by and getting used to it, then the reality sets in that I got it in January of 2016, reality that I have to start dialysis pretty soon. Then there's two options of dialysis. First is the one in the stomach, other ones the one in the arm. My biggest fear at the time was needles, hated needles. I mean, you know, never used from any needle symbol. I'm like, dude, people gotta be nuts to shoot up because I'm just that terrified of needles. So I choose to go the route of the tubes in your stomach. First person in California, that fails for us, that was nice. In the Kaiser network at least. So then they do a revision surgery, that doesn't fix it. Do another revision surgery, that doesn't fix it. Then it hits July of 2016, which is supposedly when I initially met with this, the hitman, alleged hitman, I was in surgery. Unable like just July so they told me my birthday was July 2nd was the day before my birthday And then they said they said you need to start you're below 5 % So that means we don't know what you are. You could be at 0 % and die tomorrow

Matt (34:45)
How do they give you these scales?

David (34:47)
It's called GFR, so it's a blood test and it tests your functionality. So it's like on a scale of 100, your kidneys are functioning at 100 % or they're functioning at 5%.

Matt (34:58)
And this is based off like a chemical that's put off by the function of

David (35:01)
Protein and yeah, something. You could ask my wife that, she knows a lot. I guess kind of like, okay, I guess. So then there was that decision of like at that point, so I'm below 5 % and they were like, you could literally, it could stop right now and you need to do this. So what we need to do is put a fistula in your arm and then also a tube right here right below my neck so we can literally start dialysis like immediately.

So then I negotiated with them a little bit because I was like, look, well, that's not accurate. I then took some time to think about it because at that point I was also like, my kids, my wife are set. Do I really, and this was something I was thinking about for a while in the process of actually real close to selling my company, which, so that's a whole different aspect of this whole crime was where there was like actual, you know documentation of a very good offer for my company, et cetera. anyways, so then I debate the whole concept of do I really want to be a burden for the rest of my life to my family? Because that's what I envisioned this being of, OK, so I have to go sit at a dialysis chair three days a week, hooked up to a machine four hours a day. And that just doesn't feel like life.

Matt (36:25)
Yeah.

David (36:26)
And then the people I saw when they toured, which was a stupid mistake on their part, like they showed me people on dialysis and I'm like, oh hell no. There was like, there was, mean, there was first off, was a, there was no, everyone was like 60. Like for me, I'm like 35, 36, whatever it was. And I'm like, no, I don't want that. Like if there's 60 and struggling, if I have to do this for 30, you know, and that's kind of what my theory was. Long story short, decided obviously, clarity came. And then I'm like, okay, we have it done start dialysis, you know, really that, like, I've experienced so much physical pain in my life, starting in January 2015, where it's hard to describe the pain of dialysis if you haven't been on it, but it is, imagine running a marathon, and then you're just exhausted.

Matt (37:13)
Really?

David (37:21)
You have to rehydrate, but you can't rehydrate because your kidneys, so like a lot of people don't realize when you have kidney failure, you stop peeing. So you don't urinate anymore. So that's what dialysis is all about. So then you're limited to literally a bottle like this size for the entire day. And that's actually even too much. So it's like, I think it's 13 ounces is what you really want to target. So you go from drinking five cups of coffee down to like half a bottle of water in a day. And that's one of those.

Matt (37:48)
Five cups of coffee probably didn't help.

David (37:51)
Well, no, but it didn't matter when your kidneys worked. Because you just beat it all up. So it's good. But when your kidneys don't, then you're just gaining weight. So like when you go into dialysis and you're heavy, you're taking like five kilos off, which is not recommended, but that's 12 pounds of water weight. So the stress on your heart is insane. So then it just, it's like something like 260 milliliters is being a second going through the machine and getting flooded back into your system. Wow. And that's why they put the fistula in so you have like an extra large vein for the flow. And with that, you're at a point where dialysis is almost like a four hour painful workout. Then you get out after the haze of having the treatment for a couple hours, you get a good spurt of energy like, like, okay, I feel better. And then it's just all downhill after that first hour or two Until the next dialysis treatment.

Matt (38:49)
Maybe two days later. Yeah.

David (38:51)
Day later. Like, so you have that one day, like if you have dialysis on Monday, you have Tuesday off, dialysis on Wednesday, Thursday you have off, Friday dialysis, then you have two days off, which are the worst days. That first day you're like, okay, I'm good. That second day, you just, you feel like crap because when you have too much water, you can't breathe. So like, then you have congestive heart failure. All these things that you just don't know about.

So yeah, so then that was kind of, you you get used to it, but you don't, it's painful. So then in January of 2017, and actually know the date, January 21st of 2017, I was on the dialysis chair. And again, I grew up in a Christian household. I grew up knowing the Bible. I grew up believing that Jesus Christ is the son of God, not living an aspect of my life towards that. And I openly admit that in many ways, it was just kind of like middle finger to God. It'll then just like, I'll do anything I can to go against what you want in many ways. And then from there, that day, January 21st, 2017, I was on a dialysis chair and just had this strong get right, it was a voice and it was get right with me or else. And I'm like, hmm, okay. So the reason I... I mean, it was not like a voice from the out, it was in your head, but then it was definitely distinct.

Matt (40:08)
Yeah. Yeah.

David (40:15)
It was definitely not a normal thought. It was definitely a voice that wasn't mine in my head. And I immediately was like, all right, I do need to do that. Like my life is, I'm dying here on a chair, et cetera. And then I download like the top 50 worship songs from one of those. It was like Hillsong or Marathon, one of those. Just like literally went into Apple Music, Googled top 50 worship songs, downloaded it. And that's how I know the date. Because I at that point, it wasn't that big of a date to me in the sense of trying to remember why that would be important 10 years from now or whatever.And it's crazy to think that's less than 10 years ago, So then from there, tell myself I'm going start going to church, get right, et cetera. About three months, four days later from that is when I got arrested. Get arrested, learn so much about the system so quickly. It sucks.

It was just such shock and awe where it was just like, all right, well, what's my bell going to be? You're not getting bail. We're to do every single thing we can. I'm like, what are you talking about? Like you literally like, you know, and then, you know, shocked about that. Then don't get bail. That was its own little confusion thing because the case was out of LA. I mean, out of New Orleans, hearing was in LA. Supposedly the New Orleans guy, the judge was going to rule on it, et cetera. That didn't happen. So then I'm you know, arrested that day in prison until December 28th, 2020. So I did a little under four years. So long story short, then learning about the system. So I'm in, you know, I'm in West Valley Detention Center, then get sent to Plaquemines Parish. I was there for 40 days, stuck there. That's where the case was going to be out of, which would have been better for me. The jury there would have been much better for me. But that's my opinion, but that doesn't matter.

Matt (41:48)
Okay.

David (42:10)
So then.

Matt (42:11)
A jury trial? yeah. Okay.

David (42:13)
Yeah, I went to, so I should have gone bench, which I'll tell you about, I didn't, again, like my lawyer's like, yeah, I'll get into that. So I was again, one of those first things that happens is, which was a lot in my time where there was a lot of firsts. So I'm there for, I don't know, it was 40 days. So 40 days is when I got out and sent back to LA.

Matt (42:16)
So they changed the venue.

David (42:38)
I was there for 35 days. They had to, for dialysis, because I was the first dialysis patient they ever had. Plaquemines Parish is about an hour, hour and 15 minutes, if it's not flooding, to the closest dialysis center. So every Monday, Wednesday, Friday, I get handcuffs, sit in the back of a patrol car, go to dialysis, sit there for three hours, four hours, if they didn't cut the time. So sometimes they just decided to cut the time because they want to get paid overtime. So then, then take me, transport me back to the prison, do that all over again. So that, that was kind of the thing. No, no, no, no. They, I was not, I was at Plaquemines Parish, a county.

Matt (43:14)
So you were at MDC? okay. So they didn't take you back to LA for treatment.

David (43:22)
No, no. So MDC stopped dialysis. So they, yeah, so they started busing people to another place. Then they just decided it was cheaper to outsource it.

Matt (43:26)
Really? Yeah.

West Valley. ⁓ my gosh.

David (43:35)
all federal inmates and then they mixed us with state obviously yeah even though they're not supposed to which

Matt (43:40)
What what mod were you in? I don't know what I mean

David (43:42)
I mean we jumped around so I was in the medical side which was Individual for a while then well another first couple days. I was I didn't remember the pod But that was like the first all right, you know, you're going would this whatever then you get like really quickly learn about a lot of stuff and for me I'm just like, all right. Well, I know I'm gonna have to throw down So let's just get it going and have to figure out about that and then you know, you learn that system real quick then got sent to the medical side, which was a blessing in many ways. Also not because then you're dealing with the crazy guys that are just off the streets coming off, I mean, all the other stuff. So there's almost more drama in there because there was less politics. So it was more just everyone's solo, which just made it every time someone new came in, you had to reinforce whatever it was. As you know, TVs are, you know, we had one TV and you get some fool comes in and he's like,

Matt (44:32)
That's obviously

David (44:39)
I want to, what's a stupid? There's a movie that everybody watches. Couldn't stop watch Fast and the Furious. my God, dude. I saw Fast and the Furious. I hate that movie. ⁓And there's like 12 of them now, I think. But like dudes in prison would just sit there and just watch it over and over. I assume because of the girls and cars maybe. I mean, like I just got, you know, got into an argument with somebody once, which we'll just call it that.

Matt (44:41)
Bye!

David (45:08)
Because he's new, comes in, touches the TV without asking anyone, which in itself you just don't do. And then puts it on Fast and the Furious. And there's like four of us that were just like, there's not a way in hell we're watching this again. anyways, so yeah, did that then. But the dorm living was an experience where, you know coming from where I came from. was that was definitely an experience and you got to get used to it quick. Like you're just in the holding cell. I mean like West Valley, if you've been in there, you know, they stack those. It's, it's the two, the two concrete benches, one toilet and no stand. I mean, it's all standing room. If when I got there, it was all standing room. Everyone's sitting down, people laid out on the floor.

Matt (45:54)
There's like this random five people laying on the floor.

David (45:57)
Yeah, and then and then they give you the the West Valley peanut butter that just makes you have to take crack so like you know, I my Yeah, yeah, so hot and then the fattest dude there just is eating just like packets of packets of peanut butter and you're just like this is not gonna be good and then at some point after like four hours there's he's like, sorry guys, I gotta go you're like, well, yeah Yeah, cuz you just ate like 15 packets of peanut butter dude. What the hell? Do not miss that

Matt (46:02)
Yeah, it's hard as fuck

David (46:27)
And then, so then, Plaquemines was, in Plaquemines you go and it was, I mean it's the wild west of prisons. It was literally the first time I got in, first thing I get in there. So they do like, the only prison that did this where you go into intake, they make you strip, they spray you with something, they throw all the powder on you and all that. And I'm like, so for me I'm like, dude, I've got like an open fistula here that is direct access to my heart and you're throwing like whatever this is. Like, and I get it because there's some dirty fools in there. I understand that part, but I'm like, can I just cover this, just this part with my hand? And he's like, no, no, no, no. I'm like, so I like twisted it, I'm just crazy. ⁓ So then the guard takes me down to a cell living there, ⁓ which was good, because there was dorms also, which I, that would have been, that would not have been a good thing. Just there were so few white dudes there and prison's all about rent, especially there.

And they were actually good about separating the feds from the state because they cared about that money. It was a big deal for them. We got they got a lot more money for us and they did state inmates. So then, you know, get to the cell guard literally hands me a piece of paper with an email address on it and said if you want packs of cigarettes, it's this much cocaine, meth, etc. No shame whatsoever.

If you want it, your family sends money to this email address through PayPal. He gave a few options. PayPal was the one I knew. And it was that simple. was just, whatever you want, I can bring to you, was the motto. I didn't take advantage of any of that, because at that point, I'm just like, I'm pre-trial, still real fresh to the system, didn't want any of that. Outside of the cigarettes were tempting, but they had e-cigarettes on commissary, which was just awesome. That was like...

Matt (48:19)
Awesome. What?

David (48:22)
I was like, okay. I mean, they're like 15 bucks each, but...

Matt (48:25)
Wow.

David (48:27)
That was literally the only good thing about that place.

Matt (48:29)
Dude, that sounds fucking crazy. Yeah.

David (48:33)
And then So I'm off they get this new so another federal guy comes who was robbing banks and He He comes while I was at dialysis One of the people told him I was gonna be back at whatever time I get back. He's like hey you What's your name? You know, and then he's like hey, need to put all your stuff on your bed man Don't have anything on the floor and I'm like I'm like

Okay, why and he's just like cuz I've been calling the I've been asking for the lieutenant the last two hours They haven't do it. I'm popping the sprinkler He just so each of the cells have sprinklers out there and he just he knows what he's doing because he's been in pops sprinkler and it just starts flooding and they don't know how to turn it off so the prison is Some of the poorest trained people at that point that I mean just these guys didn't know how to turn this water off so it goes from like

Oh, and they weren't replying to him, so they started ignoring everything he said. So they didn't even know it was flooding for about 30 minutes. Then I'm just pushing the button at that point, and I'm telling them, they're like, what do you want? And I'm like, it's flooding down here. They're like, what are you talking about? I'm like, there's water all over the floor. It's literally flooding. And they're like, what do you mean? I'm like, just come down here. And I say down here, even though it wasn't down, it felt like it was.

But then they came and then put him somewhere else for a while then literally the same dude, so then I'm not gonna get into the details too much of this, the same dude goes and somehow has a handgun loaded in his cell. This was about a week and a half later. So And that's all over, all over. It's funny. I have the article and stuff I printed out. Cause I'm like, no one's going to believe that part. That's just kind of crazy. And you're just like, so he had a handgun. He was planning from everything it seemed was planning on escaping at some point. So, so his goal, so the way they transported Federals down there to the courthouse was just two guards and a Ford Explorer. No, no cage, no nothing. And it seems like that's what his plan was, was to probably just do it then.

Matt (50:51)
Dude, I know people that have been transferred like coast to coast on Con Air. Yep. And they just sent them alone. And they were like, you got X amount of time to get to this gate. Like, if you're not there, we're coming for you. Wow. Yeah. I mean, I don't know how long ago this was, but I've heard like multiple stories about this.

David (51:11)
When they transported me to New Orleans, we flew commercial. Nobody knows that. we boarded. was on the window seat, far back lane aisle. I'm in the window, then the two marshals are sitting in here, and I'm in handcuffs. And I'm just like, I know I'm going to see somebody I know on this. Thankfully I didn't. But I'm just like, I know I'm going to be on handcuffs. Someone's going to come up. And these guys were just such jacks.

Matt (51:13)
Yeah.

Yeah.

David (51:39)
in so many ways, which I don't need to get into, but yeah, it was very entertaining because it was the airlines that I had high status with just from all my flying. like I'm sitting on there, and it was cool because they gave me Coke and all that kind of stuff, they, you know, technically I guess wouldn't have to. And I made like a joke like, anyway, we can get an upgrade and stuff like that. But it was just one of those, I was just making light of the situation.

I never realized that then I thought about it and I remember because I was always, when I was flying, you always see people bored, like bored before the pre-board. And you just never, it just never clicked to me that that's what it was. And yeah, so yeah, back aisle, you never know.

Matt (52:15)
Yeah. mean, now, unless you know what you're looking for. yeah.

David (52:29)
Yeah, now it's like, feel bad for the dude. I see inmates at like doctor's offices sometimes. It's like, I'm like, yeah, Dennis. I'm like, can buy him a soda? And obviously they always say no, but it's just kind of like, just to make the guy feel better. If they did, if they said yes, I would happily do it.

Matt (52:34)
Yeah, crazy. Okay, continue.

David (52:49)
Okay, so let's see. So then 28th, the good thing they were about, the good thing they did at Plaquemines Parish where they were efficient was they officially documented how poor they were giving me my medication. So it was a very, very beneficial thing because I would have probably died there. Like 99 % chance I would have died there if it would have continued much longer. 28 out of the 30, so on dialysis, I'm taking a buttload of pills.

Matt (53:19)
Yeah

David (53:20)
I mean like tons of tons of blood pressure, renvella, which is every time you eat you have to take some and so on. So then 28 out of the 35 days they didn't give me any medications. So and they documented it and I took notes and all that and I told my lawyer and we went to this pre-trial the hearing and he had an hearing to move the trial back to LA and then the the judge yeah, I was like, they're not gonna believe me is what I told my lawyer and he's like He's like, they'll believe you. They documented it for some reason. He's like, and I was like, cool. So then the judge sent us back to LA. So then go back to West Valley. And that was.

Matt (53:53)
I feel like you got robbed for not being able to like spend that time at MDC.

David (54:01)
MDC would have been so nice. It would have been so nice. But the alleged hitman who turned for the government, he was facing, so that's what essentially with him, his original story was the truth that I paid him money, I loaned him money for the marijuana grow and then he was wanting more money. I said, and he said, what about that guy who used to work for you? Would he loan me money? I'm like, go try. And that turned into him trying to get this guy killed, supposedly. Which, that guy, the victim, I don't blame him for much on this. Because he had no involvement, it's not his fault, and I fully, I get that. And obviously he wouldn't deserve being hurt over any of this, and I'm glad he was never. And that was one of the first questions I asked when they were interviewing me. was like, they were like, well, this guy was, he's dead, and showed me like this fake ass picture on their phone. And I'm like, being in the world of Photoshop for as long as I was, I was like, I looked at it for like a half a second. I'm like, that's fake. And then it was just clear what they were doing. I'm like, all right, I'm good. I just need to look. And then they're like, well, just so you know, he's not dead. I'm like, okay, thank God. like, you know, anyways. But then from there, where was I?

Matt (55:11)
They transfer you back. yeah, so they

David (55:26)
Transfer me back. I am opting for quick trial. I'm like, I need a trial. need it yesterday because I met too many people that sit.

Matt (55:34)
between you getting tri- So, two months. Okay, okay, Okay.

David (55:37)
I was at trial within six months of arrest,
which was unheard of in the feds from every, especially for my case. So they had, so like as an example, they somehow switched this, the guy who became whatever a witness against me, he that I loaned 5,000 to that did the mess stuff, he was facing a mandatory minimum of 20 years. So he was facing a mandatory minimum of 20 years just for the drug crime.

Matt (56:04)
Because it was interstate? Because he had previous stuff. okay.

David (56:07)
So he had a mandatory minimum. And then from there, he gets, after testifying and all this and making a lot of stuff up, six years. So that in itself, he was so enticed. And we caught him lying. We caught the victim lying. mean, he lied about everything too. So like when he got arrested, when I got arrested, they went to him and his initial shock makes total sense. Obviously the agents choose not to record the conversation with him because that would only hurt them. That way they can make up with whoever they want.

Matt (56:18)
Bye.

David (56:36)
So they come in, when they raid our office, they were under the impression at my house there was several guns, bags of cash, ready, I mean, they were told by the victim that I have talked about fleeing to Mexico, that I had bags of cash ready to go, I had bricks of cocaine in my house, and hung out with people that had AK-47. So this is what the Homeland Security slash everybody else was expecting.

So they, and they treated my wife horribly. It was crazy, dude. poor girl, I hate it. So they raid my office and our house. 23 agents, like, I mean, insane. My guys, after the fact, they were working there, like thought it was some prank that I was playing because I messed around a lot and had fun. And you know, I had a lot of good guys working for me and plenty I still talk to and a lot that...

Matt (57:15)
Simultaneously,

David (57:33)
are doing very well now and I'm happy about that. So then they do that, they arrest me, take me, do their stuff. Then I have no idea what's going on at my house. And she has the ring camera stuff of it. And there's like six guys, masks on with machine guns at the front door and just break everything. Find nothing, so no drugs, no bags of caskets. So like when you're on dialysis, you're not fleeing to Mexico, because within three days you'll die without dialysis. So it's as simple as that. They didn't even know, so the amount of information they knew about me before arresting, which obviously dialysis is paid through Medicare, et cetera, they didn't even know I was on dialysis when they arrested me. They had no idea about anything medical about me. were just like, they had nothing. And raid the house, put my wife in handcuffs, make her sit in the front curb, handcuffed in front of all the neighbors, just as their own punishment, go through the house, literally like her wedding dress was sealed, and cut that in half, the wedding dress literally in half. Wow. Just to be, I mean, just destroyed stuff. And again, you're like, what the hell? And not knowing anything about the justice system, and I was the guy before, that was like, if I saw cops at a restaurant, I'd be like, hey, send me their child, I got that, you know? And I'm like, myself over it. And don't get me wrong, there are, real, tons of good police officers. And I know some. And there is tons of good correctional officers. But two bad seeds can change everything. And they were targeted on me. When you look at it, their investigation was a two-year-long investigation. The last on this or little less than that on this guy that was transported math that literally fed them so much BS they thought he was like El Chapo to the point where they had an article ⁓ He had an article where he saw it in the LA Times and he was talking to some informant in New Orleans He had it in LA Times about some big 18-wheeler high and and and tells this guy dude I can't get it there because they literally just busted me and they busted our truckload and this and this. And he's trying to front that. ⁓ Cops, DEA, or Homeland Security bite at that. So they think he's this big time thing. He's talking about having murder for hire before I had any, before I loaned him money. And he was like, it's for this club owner gym. And of course, I'm in a position where I still don't know the system well enough and I'm not gonna rat. It's just I don't rat. But that was one thing I knew who club owner Jim was. And club owner Jim was a silent partner at the place where this guy worked at, who was known to be involved with all this kind of stuff. And he was a silent partner at that. But they didn't look, the government doesn't look anything at that. So this was the guy that was having this hit taken out before I was even in play. Before any text messages before me and this other dude had, the guy I loaned money to, before I loaned him any money. So then there's all this talk and they've heard about all this. Then they realize in about November that this guy is all crap, that he has, he's...

Matt (1:01:06)
They found a patsy.

David (1:01:08)
What do mean by that?

Matt
They just hung you as a patsy.

David
So I don't want to say I'm innocent, because I'm not. And I did not try to have the dude killed, that's for sure. I have made plenty of mistakes in my life that, who knows? Whatever. I didn't do that. That's for a fact. And then, so like in November, they then figure out that this guy is not what they thought. So he was not this big time drug dealer. The prosecutor who had the money, and the Homeland Security guy who has put a year and a half into this and paying an informant all this has nowhere to go now. So then they go back to this conversation, one conversation about a hit before I was involved with this that then turned into, and the dude that ratted, it's hilarious because his name is listed as an informant on my appeal publicly. wow.

It was, you know, I want to get it. That's a whole different thing I won't get into, but I'm like, okay, so it's, know, if you search his name, it's like, he's a rat and anyone. And he was trying to, he was trying to say he was running with a big gang in LA, East side Wilma's. Um, and that, and I, know, and all of that, and just completely lying about this and just insane from that standpoint. Um, from there, it gets switched to, it gets switched to the, um, the Murder for Hire plot, then they're just pushing him, pushing him, get that, get that. This is what his informant that he's talking to, well, if you get that done, then the cartel knows you're a real deal, so then the loan you money and this and that, and that goes on, that goes on, and then all this happens. So then anyway, so I'm back in, Plaggmas Parish, then I'm in West Valley, quick trial. And the key factor that I look where I made the biggest mistake, so I had a good lawyer, I could afford a good lawyer, he was good. He had a great co-counsel.

The negative parts of being at West Valley, if you know LA, is if they go to MDC, one of them has an office three blocks away, the other one 20 minute drive. Going to San Bernardino anytime is a two hour drive. And when they come, most of the time we didn't even get, we had to talk over the recorded phone call line which he was then convinced, my lawyer was convinced that they were listening in on that to the point where he had an Excel spreadsheet of pre-trial that he was talking to this prosecutor about. And he tells me this after the fact, like real quick after the fact. And he's going through this spreadsheet that he has not shared with the prosecutor. And then the prosecutor, and he's going through his list and then he mentions something and he says, okay, so you're talking about the one that's highlighted blue.

And my lawyer, Glenn, was like, how would you know it's highlighted blue? And he's like, well, I mean, you know, and then just got stuck. And, you know, that was to him evidence that they had, they were in his computer. So then he was like, look, we could spend another 150,000 and get a forensic, forensic digital person to actually come and see if they hacked it. If they did that, you're off. He's like, but it's Homeland Security. There's no, the chance of being able to do it even if they're doing it, which I really think they are, then there's really no way to prove it even so. Which from a tech standpoint, I kind of knew that as well. You know, so anyways, that was crazy. And there was a few things like that that kind of blew my mind. So then it made it where the defense was pretty good, but also there was a lot of things looking back that I should have been more forceful. Cause I was still at the point of like,

Matt (1:04:39)
Yeah.

David (1:05:01)
You know, I don't need to be that involved with this because I've got great lawyers. They're asking me the questions that they need to know. And then there was things that I, so I'm just going to assume everything is going fine. And God, that was stupid. I should have been so involved. West Valley has no law library. So you don't get to do any of that, all that crap. so then with that, go, it was the pre-trial hearing. It was the last hearing and they still didn't give us all our discovery. What? And so we're like, and then the judge said.

Matt (1:05:36)
Does feds have different rules about discovery?

David (1:05:39)
Dude, we found out about crap halfway through the trial that they didn't give us. The judge scolded the prosecutor and then just moves on. I mean, insane. And I know there's other stuff withheld for a fact now, which I'll think about talking about. But the amount of lies that go on in this system would do with my mind. But the judge was like, look, your client, this is all transcripts. Your client is choosing for a quick trial. we got to, you the government that you have to give them some lax on not providing all the discovery immediately, blah, blah, blah. And it's like, no, you don't, which my lawyer offered. And then the judge, and I'm reading back at this when I was typing up my appeal, because I chose to do that myself with some lawyer help, which we never filed the appeal. Wait, that's not true. We filed an appeal, but appeal that like the habeas corpus. So then, so the judge says,

Matt (1:06:33)
Yeah, yeah

David (1:06:38)
In my X amount of years, which is like 18 years, I have never seen a case as complicated as this one, which I was damned from that minute. Looking back at it, I had, there wasn't a chance in hell I was gonna win. Again, not knowing the system, I'm thinking complicated's good because the jury, if they don't understand what's going on, then how are they gonna convict, especially when I didn't do this?

Especially when there's so much evidence in my eyes showing that this guy's absolutely lying. That the other person, the victim, is literally profiting huge time from this. His company, I have no idea about it, but I'm sure his business skyrocketed because of this. So there's a lot of motives here that can't be explained from that standpoint. then I'm also thinking, if I was on a jury, complicated would mean they can't prove stuff. That's kind what I was thinking the benefit for a jury, they side with the government. So if it's complicated, it's because this is such a complicated heist by this smart businessman when it really wasn't at all. So I think the first mistake, biggest mistake is I didn't do a bench trial. If I would have done a bench trial, I think it would have been not guilty. Even when he read it, then...when he read the verdict, you just saw him kind of like, I was watching his eyes and it seemed like he was shocked a little bit from it. He also was very lenient when I got out, which I got out on a compassionate release. So I got out exactly at 65 % of time, which he was waiting for that. And he made decisions that were very fair and in the ruling, seemed like a, and who knows.

Matt (1:08:22)
Did he go against the recommendation? Or did he go with the recommendation?

David (1:08:26)
Again, prosecutors fought to hell. They appealed my compassion release in January. Really? Like after I got released. Like they were still trying to send me back. I didn't know about that until like a year and a half later where I was reading through some stuff and I'm like, this guy is just... I mean, and honestly, I really deep down believe that eventually one of the prosecutors or one of those agents are going to get caught with something and then things will be re-looked at. But I just don't care. Like, people are like, how can you? I'm like, I don't care. It's like, it's part of my story. It doesn't matter. I don't mind saying I'm a felon. It doesn't bother me. And it's part of what I am now. It is what it is in that standpoint. The jury was split for multiple days. So it wasn't a quick decision. Dodgers were at the World Series. Dodgers lose the World Series and so then it's split and as a Dodger fan, you know, we wanted them to win and all that, but then I'm just like, they had people, they had jurors from Santa Barbara driving down. so that's like a five hours of driving a day or four probably, every single day. And it got to this point where it was Friday and it was going one way or the other, which is it's our systems in my eyes is insane about that. Like if a jury should have one vote.

Matt (1:09:26)
my god.

David (1:09:54)
Like, if you have to convince jury members of anything, if it's actually independent jury and they're looking at it and they all review all the evidence and they go over everything that they're thinking and they do that one vote and this person's, if it's split, not guilty, guilty, then that should be what it is. But if you have to, the judge has to say, well, I want you guys to go back and rethink this. So go one way or the other, just make a choice. I mean, at some point it's just like, they're going to make a choice. yeah. So yeah, that sucked.

Matt (1:10:20)
Yeah.

David (1:10:24)
I was shocked. I thought we were gonna win. I was convinced we were going to win. My lawyer was convinced. like very convinced. Like from a reasonable doubt standpoint, was pretty hard to imagine that they couldn't rule in that favor. So I was like, dude, if this is split, it is, and they're going to do a retrial, because I'm not pleading guilty. Like, as you know, it would have been so much easier. Everything would have been easier if it's just like plead guilty, be done with it. They came to me right after the judge ordered me go back to LA, they came and offered a very, like 60 % of what the max was. Max was 10. So they came in initially at six years. And let's just solve this now. And I told my lawyer, no, I'm not pleading guilty. And then he's like, well, I mean, it's a good offer. And he does his due diligence and he was paid a flat fee. So hell yeah, if it's a lot easier to go plead out and now he doesn't have to work for it.

Which is also a mistake I should have done hourly in my eyes, but he was phenomenal. I don't want to diss him at all because he was good. But then from most of it, there's some things he messed up pretty big. Yeah, he's a lawyer. But then I was like, no, I'm not pleading guilty to something I didn't do. It's like a principle thing for me and it's just not going to happen. Plus, if I'm in here for six years, I'm going to die based off of the treatment I've had at West Valley where I've gone to the ER several times, New Orleans, where the dialysis nurses are trying to send me to the ER and they're like, no, he's not allowed. Well, he's gonna have a, he's had a history of strokes. He's gonna have a stroke because his, he's not, his blood pressure, my blood pressure was like, it was like, I think it was at one point, like 190 over 130, something like insane. There's document, I have it all documented what it was, which it was in the feds too.

And then you talk about like healthcare and the feds. my God, it was terrible. Yeah. So then get found guilty, get sentenced. Judge sentences me. So I went to trial, should have got max, which was 10 years. As you know, if you go to trial, judges give you the max. He gave me seven and a half, which was awesome. From looking back, still sucked at the time. Then go to prison. I'm at West Valley another month.

Matt (1:12:22)
Yeah.

David (1:12:45)
Go to FMC, so Devon's, Massachusetts. That's where I did most of my time. And then you get into like, you know, the federal prison side of what to expect and all that. And it's just like, you know, I walk into the unit so that you go to the shoe the first couple of days. Then you walk into the unit and you know, you do what you do where everyone's messing with you and all that. And I go to my cell. Boston is a Boston area. Shot caller in our unit, Mike Fitzgerald. So if you've ever seen the movie The Town, he's the florist. The one that dies at the end, he's the florist. So he ran Charleston.

Matt (1:13:17)
Yep. And legitimately it was that guy? Okay. Yeah.

David (1:13:27)
Yeah, so Ben Affleck came and met with him in prison. So then, and he's, I am in touch with him still, and I know for a fact there was times he probably wanted to have me taken out because I was, I didn't follow a lot of the stuff, but I was still good. So like, what people don't understand about prison is these guys.

Matt (1:13:29)
Really?

David (1:13:53)
Anyways, yeah, is they know who is coming before you get there. So like my lawyer didn't know I was going to go there. My wife didn't know. We knew there was only a few places I could go and we hoped it was there because my wife grew up in New York. It was close to her family, et cetera, and she was going to move out there. So that would be the ideal spot. We didn't know for sure. So they knew, they chose the cell. They chose my celly. They knew ahead of time everything I was.

Matt (1:13:58)
Well before you can see.

David (1:14:22)
It's, you know, so then on paper, what my, what Fitz is thinking is he looks at me as a white dude. Obviously he had money, went to trial. So I'm not a rat. No way I'm, no way I ratted cause I went to trial. Crime, murder for hire. So yeah, we want this dude. And that's how it was. And I went, I was a little different than what they were expecting. mean, literally first day I walk in, go to my cell. My celly wasn't there. He was working.

Matt (1:14:40)
Yeah.

David (1:14:52)
I'm like, I'm not touching, I'm not doing anything. I'm not trying to invade on his space at all. And obviously living in a cell with another man, gets, it can get tough. And I'm sure like he was patient. He was patient cause he's a good, he's a good dude. And he was so, he's been in long enough that he had his system. And there was times I messed up where I, I wasn't living the prison rules one way or the other.

And he'd correct and we'd get we'd butt heads occasionally, but nothing bad at all The dude was he was a good dude still is and still in contact with him too, actually, but he's and he's out now I'm doing well. thank God but then like I get there then fits pulls me in and He's just got this Irish like just he's got that look and he's just like, all right, man. So here's the rules There's really not much action here, but if it hits and this is what we do and this is our TV

If you see anyone touching our TV, go down, you all that kind of stuff. And there's some Chomos in the unit somehow, which was shocking within itself. anyways, so then, cause they had a whole nother unit where they just didn't mix for the most part, but there, there was, there was some, which was interesting, but they were protected in the feds. There was, you know, you mess. Yeah. And yeah, yeah.

Matt (1:16:12)
They're somebody's.

David (1:16:14)
They're... Yeah. Yeah, I won't get into that. So, he pulls me into a cell. He's like, so this is how you make a shank. This is what you need to get off a commissary. Shows me all that. Then he's like, if things are going to go down, take a shit in the toilet, dip it in feces, because that way, when you stab them, it's also... They get an infection. That's how they're going to die, because they're not going to treat it this and this and all that kind of stuff. I'm like...Oh crap, this is going to suck. This is just going to be like, it was a whole different, like in county, I was used to in West Valley at Plaquemines. Then back at West Valley, I was essentially on my own, you know, in the sense like I, and I was okay with that. Like I could take, I was fine. I was good. And here I'm like, so it's a whole different political system where if something pops off, I have nothing to do with.

I have to get involved and that's different. Very different. and I'm just, then you have that fine line. Okay, I got appeals and I don't want shots. I don't want this, you, know, all that kind of stuff. And, know, for, there was nothing major happened when we were, which, which is basically the long story short, thankfully there was some minor stuff, but nothing major. Not with us. There was other things that happened. What ends up with feds. So like I get there, I adapt pretty quickly.

Matt (1:17:28)
Okay, that's good.

David (1:17:44)
you know, very quickly, I would say, and get used to the system, file the appeal, appeals are going through, they decide that they're gonna, the appeals court decides to have oral arguments with ours, which was pretty cool. So my lawyer, I hired the same lawyer, how stupid, to do my appeal, which was just like, what a rookie, idiotic move. Even if he did good, he made mistakes. Like he made, there's like four or five real serious mistakes he made. He still did good.

But like from an appellate standpoint, that was just stupid on my part and I had no guidance. I had no way to know that and you wouldn't know that unless you're in and experience it. So I'm happy about it. We get our arguments. He does it. Appeals court found he had some random ass argument about like a contract law. And I again, didn't even see these appeals. I didn't read them once before he filed and I just trusted him. Again, stupid. And that's fine.

Matt (1:18:19)
Yeah.

David (1:18:41)
But he has one that was like denied for sure. And it was interesting because, you know, from a contractual law standpoint, it's just like, I don't, I don't even really understood it honestly. But then the other one was during, during treatment, I was not during treatment, during trial, the judge ruled we weren't allowed to talk about my medical conditions. So, which is a big deal. So when I got confronted with stuff, one of the big things the prosecutor was saying is, well, if he confronted and said this and this, like, why didn't you fight the guy? Why didn't you try to hold him up? Why didn't you do this? And this was a day, so day after dialysis, I'm in a complete haze ⁓ and there is literally, I forget the term for it. It's an actual medical term. It's basically dialysis days where you just don't know what's going on. You're just not there. So like, takes you what takes me now a second to comprehend. It takes like 15 seconds to put things together because you're just so exhausted. And like on dialysis, you don't sleep. Like you sleep like four hours and you wake up, you're in pain. I mean, it just sucks. So not being able to talk about that was a big deal for a couple real specific reasons we don't need to get into. So the appeals court found that the judge not allowing that into the trial was an error. But he found that they found it was a harmless error that I would have been convicted either way so like then it goes into the whole concept of Okay, so any error in trial you can now say that there that you can foresee what a split jury was thinking about right and say that they didn't if they would have known that it would have been a little bit different

Matt (1:20:27)
Like as if there's a threshold to information. Like value.

David (1:20:30)
Just blew my mind. like, there's this harmless error saying that we should have allowed this evidence in, but even though we didn't let this evidence in, we're not gonna, I mean, so, again, you learn about the system, you're like, what the hell? And then, for my passion for the ministry, I'm like, I came into this, you know, I went to inner city schools, LA Christian schools, a Christian school right next to USC. That was ran by World Impact, so was one of the few white kids, missionary kids, go there.

Matt (1:21:01)
Delancey Street is on Vernon. What? Delancey, like the program that I went to is like two miles from really?

David (1:21:09)
So they're at the world impact is a the 10 freeway in Vermont like you can see

Matt (1:21:14)
I mean Vermont, dude, no, I was on the 101 in Vermont. Like that corner is the program. That old Denny's, that's owned by that program. Okay. Yeah. Awesome.

David (1:21:19)
So yeah, so I knew there was injustices in this world, never understood it. honestly never really cared because it didn't affect me to be honest. And then you get into this and then the thing that blew my mind over and over when I was inside was just the amount of hopelessness. It blew my mind the amount of guys that had no hope for when they get out. It just made no sense to me. And then I'm thinking from my perspective, I'm white, which matters in the system I have money so I can hire a lawyer that can dedicate time To the case which wasn't enough time and I look back at that in a whole different way I had a supportive family like my wife dude three days after I get arrested She gets a tap right here. Not guilty. No right arm not guilty big The prosecutor's case was so strong that they requested her to have that covered up

Matt (1:21:57)
Yup.

David (1:22:23)
because it might sway the jury.

Matt (1:22:27)
That's crazy, dude. That's fucking crazy.

David (1:22:30)
She's a good girl Insane but like just like stuff like that or like there is the they had this whole like my god the pain of They when they did this staged photo that was clearly fake. They're like, well, this is the photo we showed him I'm like they never showed me that I told my lawyer that he's like that's the only photo there is you gotta tell me the truth if you're Yeah, I'm like I'm telling you the truth the photo they showed me looked nothing like this So then like it ends up when they were interrogating my wife they were flipping through pictures on the phone and had like 50 pictures of where they were staging the victim's death, which the real one looked really real. The one they showed me didn't. So they said the entire thing, first half of the trial, they said that there was, that was the only photo and all that. My wife talked to our lawyer and said, why aren't you showing all these other photos they have? He's like, what are you talking about? There's no other photos. And he's like, he's like, I saw them, there are. So then, finally, after my lawyer pushed it, yeah, well actually we do have those, but we didn't think it was relevant to the case. The way it's relevant to the case was they were trying to portray it was such a traumatic experience for this guy to reinvent his death, which I'm sure it was. And I get that, I get that. That's scary, for sure. But they made it seem one way, and then they have another 50 photos of him goofing around and making faces with the Homeland Security agents and it being like this big fun time.

Matt (1:24:00)
Dude, so yeah, when you look at like that piece of it alone, like they made this dude reenact his murder. And then you talk about like all of the bullshit, like the story that he told about the cash and like the guns and like all this. It's like, dude, what do you think he was gonna, like he thought this dude was gonna kill him. Of course he's gonna make this shit up.

David (1:24:07)
Yep Okay, so then on top of that, they tell him, this is public, yeah, that's public. They tell him he needs to go in hiding, all this stuff. There's actively cartel members because obviously I'm Mr. Rich Guy who knows all these cartel members from what he said. actively just trying to get, he's active contracts, who knows how many contracts there are, all this kind of crap that they're storing up. So they tell him he needs to go in hiding. Where does he go? The most, I forget the name of it. The most populated casino in LA. LA area. It's either Marenga or the one southern. I forget which one. Pachanga and Marenga. I think it's Pachanga. I forget. anyways, it doesn't matter. And it's go lay low, be where no one will ever see you, et cetera, et cetera, et cetera. And he's gambling sorry. Gambling and blah, blah, blah. There, day after he was supposedly, just the whole thing and I get it. So I understand where he is too, in many ways. So I do think there is a lot of untruths and I don't need to get into that and that doesn't matter. I do understand where he would be if federal agents came and said, guy, it's not like this guy, we think this guy tried, it's this guy is trying to have you actively killed. You are definitely like if any federal agent comes to tell you that you're going to want to believe them and do everything you can to stop them. So I don't fault him for that at all. In any way, because I would probably do the same like.

Matt (1:25:57)
You still have no contact order with this guy?

David (1:25:59)
Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Which is absolutely fine. Yeah. No desire. Like, this is the most I've even thought about this for a long... It's just, no, it's like such a far length in my past. And I still get like random texts from either him or one of the other guys as his good friends where it's just like, like, you know, you're still a piece of crap. And I'm just like, wow, it's like been this long and it still bothers you. Dude, just chill. Like, I get the trauma. I don't think it's him, but it's the other dude. And then I'm just like I'm like, okay, whatever, man, that's fine. If makes you feel better, I'm cool. I'll be praying for you, which I do. And I do. I sincerely do. pray for his health and hope and whatever trauma there is from that, I pray that's healed. I sincerely do.

Matt (1:26:48)
Okay, let's do post release.

David (1:26:50)
Okay, so, post-release, I got compassionate release, so interesting part.

Matt (1:26:57)
Wait a second. Okay, so throughout the prison term, when did, cause you're drinking water. Yep. You seem.

David (1:27:04)
I got a kidney transplant. Okay. After I got released.

Matt (1:27:06)
Okay, alright, alright. So, all through prison though? Yep. Fuck that's...

David (1:27:11)
Yeah, it sucked. So they, they were terrible. mean, them being so terrible is what got me early released. Well, it was COVID plus they documented missing treatments, which is a no-no with dialysis, all of that kind of stuff. So they were, in, from a medical standpoint claimed they could do things like, kind of, as in my favorite example of just how stupid they were from a medical standpoint was I went in there.

Matt (1:27:24)
Yeah

David (1:27:41)
My blood pressure they couldn't solve, but I firmly believe that that's because the pills they get, like I would go from crazy high on one set of hydrolyzing to the next set, making it so my blood pressure is crazy low. And I just think they have like expired or I don't know. I really do believe that there's, cause it just didn't make sense. Like why would it work really well one month and then not well the next month? Then from there, we, I had pneumonia once and they knew I had pneumonia. They did nothing to treat it. So like three days, so then three days go by, I'm at visiting, my wife would visit often, thank God, it was a blessing. And I'm just like hunched over, unable to breathe, total pain. And she's like, you need to go. And I'm like, they're not gonna do anything, I already tried. And she's like, go. And went, went told the guard, I need to go to the medical man. And he was like, okay, so then go. And just by that chance had this nurse that actually cared, which was cool. A lot of the nurses were real good.

They took my oxygen. Oxygen level was at 82. So it ends up my left lung was collapsed. So then I go to the local hospital. They're like, we cannot treat him. He needs to go to Beth Israel, which is in Boston. Go to Beth Israel. They're like, you should have died. Which there's a couple of times medically I should have died. like I went in, I was at 185-ish at that point when I went to that hospital. And then I was down to 155 two weeks later when I left the hospital. So they had to have the left lung collapse, had to do like dialysis painful. Most painful experience of my life was a plural infusion, they get a tube like the tip of the water bottle and just go quack and drain your lungs. And it was so painful. Yeah, they just, well, so that's the thing. They treated me well. I don't know if I wasn't an inmate if they wanted to have done something different.

Matt (1:29:31)
Dude, were you awake?

David (1:29:40)
But it was literally, literally like, okay, you're going to feel a pinch and this and this. So you sit on the corner of the bed like this, hunch over a little bit. And they did some kind of numbing spray and just BOP! And holy crap. like there was the initial pain from that. Then there's the liquid coming out, which was mixed with blood because they hit. So that's a whole different thing. They hit something. And so I've just got tons of fluid coming out. And then there's this point where you just can't breathe.

Because like your lungs are expanding and you just can't fill it and then, my God. And then, so that was painful. ends up that didn't work. So then they had to do, I forget the name of the surgery, something else where they had to go in and I forget the name of it, but they did something, put me under, did all that. But before that, what they were doing every hour or two is they come get the tube and there's like a gallon kind of bottle of thing to see how much is draining and it's just bloody. And they just come and they just go with the tube that's hooked up to your back and think of like trying to drain a hose. They just go like that. And again, it's just the most painful. So then they have these like students, because it's a teaching hospital. And I was like, there's seven students there and they're just like, okay, so this is how you do it. And it's like, who wants to try? That was up there on the most, that was the most painful thing I've ever experienced.

David (1:31:09)
You know, I get out, call my, so there's no contact. They won't tell my wife if I'm alive, if I'm dead, et cetera, that she doesn't know if anything. I get back and call her right when I get, that morning, because I got back at like midnight, we were already locked down for the night, call her first thing, and I'm like, hey, I'm back, I'm okay. you know, my wife doesn't know about half the stuff that happened in there, just because there's no need for outsiders to work. It's like, fights, etc. It's like, does she need to worry about them? And the politics of it, there's no reason to worry. And then,

Matt (1:31:41)
Yeah.
Also, how do you communicate that over the phone?

David (1:31:46)
No, she visited in person. yeah, we could talk about and visiting. I believe it was probably recorded, but we were about things that we needed to talk about. could talk. So then like I started. anyway, so that, you know, I come in two weeks later, little two and a half weeks, walk into the visiting room and she's sitting there waiting. She's looking past me for me because I lost so much weight. had like no fat on my face. It was just bones.

Matt (1:31:48)
Okay. Okay.

David (1:32:16)
And she's just like, and you could just see the horror in her eyes when she was just like, hey, you look good. And I'm just like, I'm like, I know, I know. You know, but then it was like mission. Like if you've been in prison visiting, then you got like the cold sandwiches and all that. And it was mission feed me and get real food and all that. So then like six months later at dialysis had a staph infection, had to go back for a week. Yeah, the medical treatment sucks. So then.

The last thing I'll say about prison that I liked, like, beneficially was, first off, like I said originally, like, without the time inside, I do not think I'd have the relationship with Christ because I was so against it before. That changed my life in so many ways, where it's kind of a different type of dependence, where I literally am like, in my life, I'm good. Like, the worst case scenario is death, maybe? And death, I feel good about that because I'll go to heaven, and I do firmly believe that, with that, my skills inside were my value inside, as you know, you want to have value, is I was uniquely positioned to get along with all the races, which was a really odd thing in there. It was frowned upon very much initially by FITS, but I started doing legal paperwork for myself after I lost that harmless air thing. I'm like, I don't trust a lawyer. I'm not paying a lawyer. I'm doing all this. I have all this damn time in here. So I learned every single thing I could about compassionate release. I'm like, that's the ticket. And I was doing that and working on my other appeal for which I'm like, what's going to be statistically my best shot is compassionate release because it clearly lists my disease as a reason to do it. So then when Trump passed the first stepped act, allowed us to, that allowed us that once the BOP denied us, we could then go to court. So before that, your only hope was the BOP saying yes, which they said no to, think it was 99.9902 % of them. So then you get to go to court. So then I read all the case law on it, figured everything out, started doing motions. We had counsel on the outside that I did everything and gave it to them. They touched it up. They'd submit it because that would save months instead of going pro se. But then I started, people came and said, hey, can you help me?

Matt (1:34:28)
and they submit it.

David (1:34:36)
And I'm like, yeah, I can, but here's the thing. I'm no promises, obviously, because it's a long shot. they're like, well, how much? And I'm like, I'm not going to charge. So that's another thing. I'm not going to charge. I don't want money. I don't want anything. So then I started doing legal work for others. So then Fitz comes to me early on, because he learned about me doing some stuff for a black dude. And he was like, hey.

We can't, you can't do that. He's like, you're not allowed, I'm not, we can't, because if something, if this guy, and his theory I understood was if something comes from this, if he thinks that you didn't do a good enough job and starts a fight over this, then we have to get all that kind of stuff. So politically I get it. So then I was just like, look, if something comes from this, and I was screening dudes I was working with, if something comes from this, then I'm alone, I get that. I don't, I'm not going to expect any of that. So we came to that conclusion, which was fine.

Matt (1:35:33)
Yeah.

David (1:35:34)
It took a while and he kind of, he was okay with it and whatever. So then I started doing it and then I started getting really good at it. And I was good at it. And I ended up while I was in, span of like, I don't know, it like nine months, I got six people out. So where I wrote the motions, I got to reply to the government and I had a system that I thought was unbeatable. And in the sense of, cause it was legit. was all, mean, it was, yes, we're going to die in here because of, and this was all, this was all happening then pre-COVID. was, that's when it passed. But then when COVID hit, that's when people started, it started really getting people released. And that was, that was pretty awesome. Cause it was like, you know, a Muslim dude that I'm great guy. And something that typically wouldn't be a mix for, and just like,

You know, and like he was awesome and a good wonderful guy. And he got out and the Mexican dude. And like where I was at, like, so I'm from LA, the guy who I walk into the unit initially, the number two, number two Crip is at that prison. Grew up in Watts. Watts Christian School was part of World Impact. And he's like, I know what Watts Christian School is.

And I was like, that's my father from world impact. founded that, that, that, that, that, and then he was like, man, that was like a bond where he and I were talking a lot. Then like the Mexican side being from LA, there was one dude who grew up like real in Venice, real close to Culver city. And like we knew people on the streets. I mean, so it was pretty wild. then you get like, you know, and then he was like, you know, and very involved with the gang and all that kind of stuff.

Matt (1:37:28)
It is a small world.

David (1:37:29)
It's crazy. It's wild. Like, I saw, I was able to visit somebody yesterday at a federal prison on the way down here and he was a guy I did time with and he's got, you know, hopefully he'll get out in the next couple of years. But, you know, there was somebody else at that prison that randomly I saw and I was like, oh my God, you know, it's just crazy. It's a small world. Big world because there's 2.2 million people incarcerated, but it's also a small

Matt (1:37:50)
It is Yeah. Well, the thing about like prisons is like you are categorized. And so the likelihood of you like going to the same prisons is like the same people that you've been locked up with already is pretty high.

David (1:38:06)
Yeah, yeah. So then what else? don't know.

Matt (1:38:12)
Yeah, so post post release let's talk about like What are you doing now? How did that all guide you towards it? Yeah, and and

David (1:38:20)
So yeah, post release, get released, shocked. get, they come and they're like, hey, is this where you're being released to? Wait, are you going here or are you going to LA? I'm like here. I'm like, why? They're like, we just need to know. They won't leave. Two hours, hour later, another counselor comes and he's like, hey, we just wanted to make sure this is your, I'm like, what's going on, man? And then they're like, well, you got released. And I'm like, so I was convinced they were transferring me.

And then I was just like well you have to give me you legally have to give me dialysis before I leave Because it was at that point a third day And then and then I'm like I'm not getting released and I was thinking they were gonna fly me to Springfield to the prison there So I'm like and then I'm gonna have to wait another three days. I'm gonna die and blah blah blah So I'm like you guys have to that's like legally I know you have to and I didn't know if that was true, but it was it felt like it would be So I get dialysis then

I'm like, so am I, I'm still not convinced. Like asking the counselor, the guards, I'm like, so am I, and we were all in lockdown, cell lockdown because of COVID. And he's just like, he's like, you're going home, bro, for real. And I'm like, and then I didn't believe it until I got to dialysis. And one of the nurses was like, my God, I can't believe it. I heard you're going home and this and that. So my wife picks me up, takes me to the grocery store. First stop, there's like, you know, enormous amounts of food, all that. And that prison instinct.
10 minutes later is still very much there. in the fruit section, some dude, and it was chaotic. Like a lot of people, no one knows the rules in my head where like you don't walk up on people, you don't walk behind. If you walk behind somebody, you're like, hey, I'm coming behind you, whatever. And this, like, I forget what fruit it was, but they're in a fruit section. Some dude just walks near me and kind of bumps into me. And I'm just about to elbow. And I'm just like, all right, babe, we gotta go. I can't do this.

Matt (1:39:49)
Isn't it amazing how polite the entire system is in prison? Like how polite everybody is.

David (1:40:21)
Because if you don't live by those rules, it's chaos. mean, and that's one of the things like so leading, I'll get quickly past that, but my wife had a rolling appointment for Beth Israel Hospital for a transplant. So she was a donor, match. So she did all the tests outside of the big expensive one to pre-qualify herself for it. Then she had a rolling appointment for me. So to get an appointment there takes like four or five, six months.

Matt (1:40:24)
Yeah.

David (1:40:50)
So she had set one up and then whenever it came up, she would just call a couple of days before, hey, he's not feeling well, he can't be in and then pushes it a couple of months. It just ended up that my first appointment that she had from that rolling appointment was like three weeks after I got out. So go hit the ground running. I'm on dialysis long enough. I'm at the top of the list. I get approved June 17th for a kidney transplant. And they're like, we don't need to test your wife. We really don't think we need to because you are number one.
like in the entire area. June 21st, they call and they're like, we think we have a match for you. There's one person ahead of you, but we don't think it's going to work out. So just be prepared. That was at like 2 PM. Then at 6 PM, they called and said, we're still not sure. We'll call you back by eight for sure. No calls. So we're like, oh my God, that sucks. But we need to pack a bag. We need to figure all this out. Then at midnight, they call and say, hey, we need you in by 5 AM and got the transplant. like I had perio carditis, high blood pressure, severe sleep apnea, all these things, get the transplant within four months, everything's gone. So then that was a life-changing moment by far. Being released was a life-changing moment. So then it was kind of, the theory was the first couple months we wanted just to chill, honestly, have time together. I didn't start really hammering out

Matt (1:41:59)
Of course. Everything. Yeah.

David (1:42:19)
specific plans until probably that August or a couple months after the transplant. I knew in my head I wanted to do something prison related. I did not know what it was. My initial instinct was being business minded. I wanted to start businesses, employ guys, because the stats say that with recidivism, which is nationally 68%, so that means of the 600,000 people released in the last 12 months, 400,000 will be rearrested within three years. So that's insane. That number of 68 % drops down to 9 % when people are employed. So then I'm like, that's a key factor. I'm good at that. I can do that. That's what I was thinking. What it turned into was trying to find out where we're going to live. started doing the like, what was the, so while I was inside, did legal work, but I also trained guys like how to read, how to write, how to communicate, how to, you know not do prison talk, I guess is the best way to explain it. mean, not be loud, unnecessarily loud, like, yeah, yeah, like deinstitutionalize. So then while I was first out, I'm like, I made a long list of everything like I could think of. So that's where our program, Brand 316, what we do is yes, we are Christian, we do Bible studies, I go preach at prisons often. I never ever had the intention of going back to prison.

Matt (1:43:25)
D program.

David (1:43:47)
That was not part of my calling by any means. I was like, I have no problem picking somebody up from prison. That's as close as I want to get. And God had different plans. And now I go in, we do Bible studies. We're in every Kansas Department of Corrections. We're in, I think, 17 federal prisons, some in North Dakota, some in Memphis, South Carolina, New York. I mean, we're at a lot of places where we are doing not just Bible studies, but we're doing reentry training. So I wrote a curriculum, is a, it's a 52 week reentry skills guide on what to expect when you get out. And basically it's a self study book teaching people how to readapt into society. So my biggest, like when I preach, when I talk to anybody, I'm like, look, we have, I've been there. We have all the time we need. We could do anything. We could watch eight hours of TV.

We could go play cards, you can do that. Spend some time, God gave you a brain for reason. Spend time thinking about what you're going to do to get released and what you can do to improve those chances of success when you get out. And it's been good. It's been real good. So our life skills and reentry training focuses on everything from budgeting to anger management to interpersonal skills to how to write a resume, how to interview, how to approach being a felon, how to start a company. Like, it's a huge range. we have, you know, it's actually, it's on the tablet of every Kansas prison right now. So every single inmate in the KDOC, which is 9,500-ish, has access to it. And they're using it, several, I know, because they write us often, are using it and really preparing for that life after release.

We also have a reentry home in Wichita. So when guys are part of our program, if they take part of our year-long training, they're involved with our Bible studies, they fill out the six-page application, which basically asks for everything that people do not want to tell you while they're in prison. So we want to know their crimes, we want to know their weaknesses, we want to know their mental instabilities, and they have to write it all out, six pages. We get about a 15 % return on those.

And the people that have been taking part of the program have been doing phenomenal. It's been changing lives and it's pretty cool to watch. So yeah, we did, the curriculum is really just focused on all that. Then we have a 52-week Bible study, which is again, self-study. So like the reason I did these studies was from a federal level. Like I said, yesterday I got into a federal prison to visit an inmate as a friend. I have tried to get our system into federal prisons and they want nothing to do with it. Even though it works. So like our program, the people that have taken part in our program, that have taken part of it while they're inside, when they get released, we have 100 % success rate over three years. So it works. The people involved in the program know it works. We have guys that are working full time, saving money making smart choices and winning at life, like doing good and like excelling. And it's one of those things, I do hope eventually other places will come around to it. And by far, mine's not the perfect program, there's others out there. But the importance is for the men inside and women to actually just, step one is to start thinking about that future. Like you have so much damn time in there, spend it on something that's useful.

Matt (1:47:34)
No. Okay, so you've written books. so what are the books and what are they about? Alright.

David (1:47:37)
I have written books.So I brought you some. So this one is the reintegration roadmap. That's the reentry book. So it is a 52 week basically guide. Every lesson is, you know, like the first week is release issues, how to prepare now for them. It is about three pages of content, then followed by 10 worksheet questions that they either email, fill out, mail us, whatever.

Matt (1:47:46)
Okay.

David (1:48:06)
So then it goes, I mean, the table of contents is extensive, but it goes from, you know, release issues, adaptability, setting goals, staying out of drama and gossip, which is something you really have to learn out of prison, because that's what prison is. It's like high school. then, consequences. I mean, like that's like the trauma from prison, like at West Valley, a dude, one of the units we were in,

Matt (1:48:23)
with dire consequences.

David (1:48:35)
they transported the guy up the stairs, handcuffed like they should, new female guard, and should have held onto him while she opened the door. Or actually, technically what she should have done was put him in, then unhandcuff him, but the way they did it there was different. He, they say jumps, but whatever, falls over the rail, handcuffs behind his back, head first, lands right in front of my cell. I heard the scream, I heard the crack. Then I'm just like, just shocked for a minute. And then I'm like, I don't want to look. But then you hear all the ruffle and all that outside of guards and code, you know, all that. blood. Then you're just like, you know, that like gap between your door. Then there's just a little bit of blood coming through. And I mean, just crazy. like, you never, I'm not, you know, and then you see people stabbed. I mean, never.

Matt (1:49:27)
Or the sound. yeah. The smell too. Yeah.

David (1:49:36)
Yeah, so like this addresses trauma. Like how do you deal with trauma? And obviously you talk about it. Like for me, like it has been healing to be able to do what I do because I'm able to talk about it. you know, like for me, I...I truly don't care what people think. Like, I am sure half of the people that listen to this are gonna be like, he's definitely guilty and definitely did it. The other half are like, he definitely didn't do it. And then like for me, I'm like, I don't care, it's the past. I really don't care whatsoever about that focus on this future. So you know there's an issue. If my story is false, true, whatever you think, you still know that there are men inside that deserve a second chance. There are women inside that deserve a second chance. There are more people in prison for drug usage that if they went to an actual rehab facility would be so much better suited because there's more drugs in prison and it's easier access. I mean, it's just crazy. It's insane to me. Anyways, back to the book. So this is the reintegration roadmap. That's the core of our curriculum. I'm redoing it now painfully slowly. I had a lot more time when I was during COVID to do it and not running everything I run. So that is the first book. The second book is exact same concept.

But this is a 52-week Bible study. It's called Forgiven and Free, Breaking the Chains. So this is all about second chances. So, biblically, my saying for the ministry is we serve a God of second chances. I think that if you look historically throughout the Bible, you look at Moses, who murdered, he fled the law for 40 years, God used him for great things. If you look at King David, made severe mistakes, adultery, murder, etc. God used him for the future. The Apostle Paul was Saul. who loved, I mean, talk about murder for hire, that dude would kill everything Christian, and God used that for his glory. So my pitch to every man inside, and actually everyone on the outside, is God has a history of using people with bad pasts to promote his kingdom, and you can't preach something to people that are hurting if you've never experienced it. It's like somebody without prison experience starting a prison ministry,

Yeah, you could theoretically start it, but you actually don't have any idea of what it feels like to be in a cell, locked in, dependent on a guard who is by chance probably not wanting to serve you food, whatever that case is, or let you out for dialysis that day. So there's all those things. You don't know that feeling until you've actually lived it. You don't know the feeling of, you know, seeing someone stabbed or the, you don't understand how race-related prison is until you lived it. Like, having our Bible study, we have every race. We got every race there. And it's pretty crazy for in there at one of them, it's pretty hot in there. And it's pretty wild to see that. So that's something that this is used by inmates. And this has probably spread Brand 316 more than anything. So like, at the federal level, that's why we're in so many federal prisons, is we had a group of inmates at USP Leavenworth and in the feds they transfer you everywhere. that Bible study of five turned into five different Bible studies and five different prisons. And then those guys are now doing it and the same thing's happening where, you know, we get contacted by someone random writing a letter, hey, I want to start a Bible study here, can you send me a book? And I'm like, how many books do you need? And we'll send them all. And that's an open offer to anybody. If you want to start a Bible study, you have a family member inside that you think needs to start a Bible study, if they have interest and believe in Christ, we would love to send it to them directly. Or you can buy it on Amazon. But we're happy to do it if money's an issue. The last book was Sober Living Focus, and focused on people, second chances. It's a daily devotional.

This has been, it's called Unfinished Stories, a year-long daily devotional of encouragement, faith, hope, and fresh starts. It's for somebody that doesn't know the Bible that well. I am not intelligent from a book's standpoint. I didn't get those genes. I can elaborate in writing on certain things, but like this is more to the point, easy, short to the point, and that's kind of what the focus is. also been blessed with this one. mean, it's it's you know, there's groups like celebrate recovery that we know a lot of people that are using it there now in prison, if they allow books, so lot of the states don't allow books anymore.

Matt (1:54:20)
because everything's on the tablet.

David (1:54:22)
No, no, K2. So they stopped Amazon at most states. So like, we have to get approved to bring in boxes and all that. Like, I can't ship, like in Kansas, there's no inmate in Kansas that I can send this to through Amazon. Because they figured out how to get K2 in through Amazon.

Matt (1:54:28)
That's crazy. That's so crazy.

David (1:54:46)
So it's reseller. And K2 is essentially, mean, people watching this know what K2 is. But that's like, if you think, I mean, but I understand why they did it. Cause they had like, one of the prisons we go to, I won't mention the name cause it's again, they officially wouldn't recognize this cause everyone dies in the hospital. But they had 23 inmate deaths, overdoses from it in a very short timeframe at the beginning of last year.

Matt (1:54:48)
Yeah That's so crazy.

David (1:55:16)
I mean, just insane. Wow. So yeah, those are the books. And that's the curriculums. That's what we do. That's what we focus on. And, you know, then we go in, so we teach this. We're also, there's a couple of rescue mission that has a KDOC program where I've created PowerPoints for each of these lessons. So there's other people teaching them. We're at a work release facility in Wichita where

Matt (1:55:21)
Okay.

David (1:55:45)
Those are men that are allowed to go work in public. They're still in jail, but we also do classes there, training them for what they expect, because they're in a different shoe. They're making money. So they're not in the, I'm going out broke. I'm going out with 10,000 of savings. What I do? Which could be very devastating. Very good.

Matt (1:56:02)
Yeah, yeah, yeah. It's all perspective, I guess. Okay, so how did this start? Like, where did that develop from?

David (1:56:14)
It was a, I mean, it started inside. mean, the thought, I was shocked with the amount of people that couldn't read. I was shocked with the amount of people that couldn't put together a resume. was shocked with the amount of people that wouldn't think about what am I going to do a year from now when they get out? Meaning like, I have six months left. I'm going to go live with this person, but they don't know that parole is going to call this person and then check and make sure that that landlord's okay with a felon living there, which that happens a ton of times where, you know, like that's not uncommon. So we try to, we try to focus on, I was trying to focus on all those cores and those issues. And then I'm like, you know, if I just wrote all these down, it would be easier. And I'm a list kind of guy. So then I start writing it all down. Then I started elaborating on it. Then it started because we started training inmates and then I had to create lessons to get into it. So then I just devoted.

I don't remember how long I just I'm kind of if I get the go-to I go so I would start waking up at 6 a.m. And work till 10 p.m. On this and only this and hammered it out. I think in five six days Then proofread it and there's probably still things wrong with it because I again my audience isn't you know, the Harvard Educated they're gonna say you miss misspelled them and there's not misspellings I don't think but you know, this this sentence structure isn't correct. I'm like, don't care

But it gets that point across and it gets what's needed done. like inside I saw that then I kind of created a business plan of from a ministry standpoint, what I did not want to do was be dependent on other people. So as an entrepreneur, I did not like the concept of having to beg people for money to do what I think is right and maybe have to change my philosophy on things. So I refuse. mean, like in Wichita, we're one of the stand together. I don't know if you're familiar with them. That's, you know, the Charles Cokes Foundation.

Charles Koch lives there. So one of the richest men in the world and they are he's very helpful with helping people That's you know, people will tell my god, he's horrible this and this I don't know never met him But I know he has a lot of money going into helping the poor And has and that organization has a huge heart for doing it. Whatever else he does. I don't know about but I do know that but I also know that if I if there's organizations like that and I'm like, well, I want to, think this is the way to do it. Well, we'll give you money if you change ABC. And I'm like, well, I'm kind of stubborn and it's working. So I'm not going to do that. So I don't like the con. I'd never liked the concept of going and begging for money. then my initial goal was start businesses. So like we have lawn three 16. So LAWN three one six three one six is based off of brand three 16, John three 16. Then also the Wichita area code is three one six. So then we have Lawn 316, which is a lawn mowing company, essentially, landscaping, that 31.6 % of all the profits get donated to the ministry. So our goal was to be self-sustaining by, initially my goal was by January, 2026. We are so close. We're not there yet, but we are like ridiculously close, which is fun. And I think after this lawn season, we will be there. And I'm also, looking at other companies to start. we're not just raising money for the ministry through that. We're also employing men that need employment through that and then training them to start their own businesses. Because I firmly believe for most of the people coming out that their best avenue to wealth and long-term wealth is starting something themselves. I mean, like your story, like that's incredible. I mean, that's crazy. But that's how it should be.

Matt (2:00:03)
Yeah.

David (2:00:11)
And like we said before, we even started where it's just there's so many, like you've been inside, you've seen the creativity men have from making anything and everything.

Matt (2:00:24)
Yeah. And turn this out of Star- out of Starburst. Uh-huh.

David (2:00:28)
Yeah, Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah Yeah, I mean or even just chef I think cooking if you if you think about someone should make a prison cookbook

Matt (2:00:31)
They have.

David
Have they?

Matt
Yeah, but it doesn't translate into the streets well, because you're not cooking on a bed. Yeah. You're not using a trash bag. And that all like. Yeah, ⁓ all that contributes to what the end product is. Yeah. Because I've tried desperately to like make that. It doesn't just doesn't happen.

David (2:00:50)
Yeah, it's incredible. like that type of creativity, so like that's one of the initial things we ask people in our program is like, what do you love? Not what do you want to do in the future? What do you love? Because there is money in anything and everything. So if you like making food, prison food, and you're a good chef and you like that, that's something you're pursuing. Like we have in Wichita State University tech, WSU tech has free programs for dudes coming up that teaches them, they get certificates in welding, several other, engineering, CNC, so we have like Spirit Airlines, Boeing, Textron, so there's a lot of second chance hiring going on there. If you're qualified, if you're smart enough to take advantage of it, et cetera. And there's programs like that that we can tell guys like, look, you can go get this done for free a lot of the times, because there's enough grants out there, literally be welding, making 80, 90,000 a year within an X timeframe.

Matt (2:02:01)
Yeah.

David (2:02:01)
So we try to figure out, that's like our first qualifying thing is first off, are you serious? So that's what the six page application's about. Then secondly, what do you actually want to do long-term? And let's figure that out because when you get on the streets, you're not going to have time to, because everything comes and comes quick and everything feels like impossible. So plan that out now. And then what can you do while you're inside to improve your chances? So like it came from thinking about all that. Then I kind of was like, okay, we're doing this. This is the plan. Still didn't really want to go into prisons and was lucky that I was on paper so they wouldn't let me in. So I'm like, okay, I don't have to worry about that aspect quite yet because I knew I was going to be traumatized.

Matt (2:02:42)
How long were you on paper?

David
Two and a half years. I was ordered five. They let me off after two and a half. Yeah, two and a half. so then, which was a very awesome way it happened too, which was cool.
But started the ministry, then I'm like, okay, this is the plan, this is what we're doing, I need to become a 501c3. So then fill out all the paperwork, do everything I need to do with that, send it in on January 3rd of 2023, I think, yeah, January 23rd, 2023. And literally on January 17th, get a letter from the IRS that it was approved January 10th. So got full 501c3 status in a week, which with the IRS, that's incredible, lucky.

Then I'm like, okay, well now I can start fundraising. So then we start raising funds essentially for sending books. It was kind of the theory. I don't take a salary. I don't take any money from the ministry. I get reimbursed for mileage. That's the only money going out outside of one of the dudes that comes and does Bible studies with us that I pay 20 bucks an hour because he deserves at least that. Then start the ministry, get that, then the natural what's next, we have inmates, we have people in the feds, then we need a house. So then I'm just like, God, I really don't want to get into housing, that's going to be a pain. Meet some random family that was going to the same high school as my kid. He's like, hey, what brought you to Wichita? I'm like, oh, it's a prison ministry. And he was like, that's crazy. I have been praying about this for, long story short, he is, a couple months later, comes and says, hey, want to do, my wife and I talked about it. We're going to do a donation match of up to 70,000 for a house. Wichita, you could do that almost at that time. Crazy wasn't thinking about it. Huge blessing, wonderful family. I mean, amazing people. Able to raise the money real quick. So, you know, we raised that. Then we're looking for houses and we end up looking, bidding, et cetera. Don't find any. Then we find this perfect house, that for whatever reason didn't say it was rainy that week and no one went to see it. We went in cash offer. At that point, I was convinced we were going to need more money because it was exactly we raised $165,000. The price of the house was $165,000, four bedroom, two bath, 2,000 square feet, good condition, which that just come from LA is insane. It's just like mind blowing. We I reached out to somebody that I knew had money.

Matt (2:05:15)
Yeah, sure.

David (2:05:24)
That hasn't given us any and I'm just like, hey, we've been consistently about 15 to 20,000 below hitting this market just because we're in that flipping market, our budget was. I was like, would you and your wife consider whatever that difference is up to a certain amount? And he said, I'll talk to my wife. We put in the offer that day at 165. Then he says he'll talk to his wife. they accept our offer, I'm like literally going into the prison, get a call from the real estate agent, going to the prison, hey, they accepted the offer, 165. I'm like, that's insane, it's crazy, so happy, gotta go, because if I'm late, they won't let me in. Go in, then come out, then I get out and I have an email from that other guy saying, hey, we'll give you up to 20,000 towards this. So we didn't end up needing it, which was also fun to be able to tell him, hey, guess what, it actually happened and we don't need the money, which was a blessing within itself. The housing side we've also gotten into and that's been good. It's all the guys that are doing really well. There's the standard drama of a bunch of guys living with each other, but that's life.

Matt (2:06:37)
Dude, that's amazing. We're definitely gonna have conversations outside of this podcast. Yeah.

David (2:06:44)
Yeah, and that's turned into like, I still don't want to get too much into housing. So then we have a group in Kansas, a family in Kansas City that met one of their guys in a Bible study. And this guy was former AB, different one than I told you before, did all that, found God inside after a while, got to that bottom, started doing our Bible studies, and they transferred him to Terreux, took the Bible study everywhere, gets out, does well and meets a doctor at a gym. And for whatever reason, they start talking and both, and he's just like, learns a lot about his story and how corrupt the system is. And he's just like, well, what can we do to help? And he's like, well, we need housing. then we're helping, they're doing it, but we're helping them along with the process of how to do it. So now that guy who was in the program is now gonna be running that house plus several others. But if you think about that, we're just, you change one person and now he's going to be affecting what, like 24 people every year alone, just from that.

Matt (2:07:50)
Yeah, this is the ripple effect of a single person. Yeah. Easy. It's beautiful.

David (2:07:54)
And that's crazy.
So, yeah.

Matt (2:07:59)
Alright, dude, I appreciate your time and I really appreciate you coming down. Appreciate it.

Thanks for listening to My Last Relapse. I'm Matt Handy, the founder of Harmony Grove Behavioral Health, Houston, Texas, where our mission is to provide compassionate, evidence-based care for anyone facing addiction, mental health challenges, and co-occurring disorders. Find out more at HarmonyGroveBH.com. Follow and subscribe to My Last Relapse on YouTube, Apple Podcasts, Spotify, and wherever you like to stream podcasts. Got a question for us? Leave a message or voicemail at mylastrelapse.com. If you're feeling overwhelmed or struggling, you don't have to face it alone. Reaching out for support is a sign of strength, and help is always available. If you or anyone you know needs help, give us a call 24 hours a day at 888-691-8295.