Justice Then, Justice Now
This podcast explores the American criminal justice system from all angles, including perspectives from: law enforcement, prosecution, inmates, fugitives and everything in between.
Justice Then, Justice Now
Ep 12: Dickie Lynn - Smuggling, Survival, and Redemption
Experience the story of Richard "Dickie" Lynn, a man whose life journey took him from the serene shores of Michigan to the high-stakes world of marijuana smuggling in Key Largo. Listen as Dickie recounts his early years, the pivotal moment when his family moved south due to his father's health, and the havoc wreaked by Hurricane Donna. Discover how a sports-loving high school student found himself drawn into the thrilling yet perilous realm of drug smuggling in the 1970s, driven by the allure of easy money and the absence of significant law enforcement.
Unravel the complexities of marijuana smuggling operations of the late 1970s, as Dickie narrates the transition from boat-based smuggling to sophisticated air operations from Belize to Louisiana. Get an insider's perspective on the intricate logistics of these covert missions, and the unsettling reality of corrupt Customs Officials like Charlie Jordan. This chapter vividly portrays the high-stakes environment and the unpredictable twists that defined this dangerous chapter of Dickie's life.
Follow Dickie's harrowing experiences behind bars, from a daring escape attempt to his time in ADX Florence, one of the most secure prisons in the world. Hear his heartfelt reflection on the consequences of his actions, his fight for compassionate release, and his redemptive journey advocating for criminal justice reform. The episode concludes with insights into the harsh realities of the prison system and the powerful impact of inmate advocacy—offering a raw, honest look at crime, punishment, and the long road to redemption. Join us for this eye-opening discussion that challenges conventional narratives and highlights the importance of resilience and hope.
Produced by: Citrustream, LLC
Today we have Richard Lynn, aka Dickie Lynn, from Key Largo, who I had the pleasure of meeting two weeks ago, recommended a wonderful place to have a fish fry on a Friday in the Keys, which I got to tell you it was unbelievable, it was really good and I will definitely head down to Florida City again. Dickie is a great story. He's been involved in the criminal justice system. He had a book written about him, the Trials of Dickie Lynn, which I've read, even about two years ago I think I read it, even about two years ago, I think I read it and here today to talk with him and discuss his life and, more important, his future, and when we're going to go have a fish fry again, because I really enjoyed it a lot. So anyway, dickie, welcome and it's great to have you on. Justice Then. Justice Now.
Speaker 2:Well, it's great to be here and I'm very happy to be here, and it was a pleasure meeting you a couple weeks ago, and I think you're working for a great cause and that's a wonderful thing. We need reform in the system.
Speaker 1:Thank you very much. Yes, we do. That's the whole purpose of this is to get a discussion going on criminal justice issues. Then and now we have everybody from different spectrums and perceptives of the system, from different spectrums and perceptives of the system and, more important, if there's a way to fix it and make it better. I think for everybody that's the main thing. You know, as I told you, I majored in this in grad school and it's always had my interest, the whole spectrum. Anyway, usually I started out as if you could give me your background, a little bit about yourself, and you know how you ended up in the Keys. I know the answers to this, but our viewers would definitely like to hear it.
Speaker 2:Well, I ended up in the Keys. We were. I was born in Michigan and my father had a very bad bronchitis and and so he was very susceptible to catching pneumonia and the doctor told him he needed a warmer climate. So he packed us all up and we moved to the Keys in 1958. And I was four years old and we started. You know just, my father started a smoked fish business and in 1960, it got wiped off the map in Hurricane Donna and it was moved to another spot. And then my father, after a few years of smoking fish, he was a carpenter also and he got his contractor's license and was building houses down here. And I grew up down here my whole life.
Speaker 2:The school I went to was kindergarten through 12th grade. There was no junior high, senior high, all that. It was just one school Coral Shores. And we, you know, we live on an island, so everybody knows everybody, everybody knows everybody's business, everybody, you know. So it's a very small little clicky place.
Speaker 2:And in high school I was, you know, I was more of the and I was more of the. I don't know whether you'd call it a redneck, but I was a jock. I was into sports. I played sports and baseball and football, and I was into all that. I was not into drugs. But when I graduated out of high school, the year I was supposed to graduate, my father was killed in a car accident and so, instead of putting a burden on my mother, because we didn't have a lot of money, she was a waitress and so, instead of putting a burden on my mother, I started construction and I was working with my brother, who basically took my father's business over, and I was making $4 an hour digging ditches, pouring concrete.
Speaker 2:And so a friend of mine that I went to high school with came to me in 1973. And he told me that his dad wanted me to work for him because I knew the back country. I knew the water is very good around here because I grew up my whole life in a boat, diving and fishing. So I said, yeah, well, you want me to work. What does he want me to do? He's like well, he wants you to go out and meet the mothership. I was like, with what? And he's like well, with some pot on it. And I go oh, you know. At first I was like, oh, no, you know. And he goes no, all you have to do, you don't have to touch it, all you have to do is lead the boat in. So I went out and I put a light down in the gunwale on my boat and I led a 55 foot lobster boat into a house that they had secured as a as an offloading site and a few days later I got a brown paper bag with $35,000 in it and, to say the least, I was kind of ruined.
Speaker 2:I was recently married and I didn't want to tell my wife because I thought she would just flip out. So I did I don't know four or five, six trips, whatever it was, and I saved up all the money and when I finally threw the money out on the bed and said here it is, she kind of freaked out. What did you do, rob? A bank? What happened? What you know? She was panicking and I said, no, you know, and I explained to her what I was doing. And you know that it was marijuana and it's okay, I'm, you know, and that was, that was that, and I was, you know, we were just we decided I'd stop when I made $250,000.
Speaker 2:Well, when you are in a business like this and the money's coming so easy, back then there were no customs. There were no DEA down here. There was Coast Guard, marine Patrol and the local police and I went to high school with all the local police guys so of course they were on our payroll. We had the Coast Guard, we had everybody and there was not much risk involved. And back then if you got caught heck, guys were getting caught on boats with 25,000 pounds and doing five years it was. You know, there was no sentencing guidelines and it was a lot different than it is this day and age. You know, this day and age a guy can be on the corner with a handful of drugs in his in his hand and end up getting 40 years or sometimes and there was no money laundering statutes anyway.
Speaker 1:Right, there was nothing in the late 70s there was nothing back then.
Speaker 2:Yeah, there were no treaties with the cayman islands or the whoever there was. Just it was wide open and and uh, so I I was going to stop when I made 250, 000 and that came and went, and then I was going to stop when I made 500 and that came and went and you get the greed factor takes over. You know it's it's kind of it's so easy and it's like it's easy money and it's fast money, and so I just got entrapped in it. I got you know it's fast money and so I just got entrapped in it. I got you know it's like a whirlpool. The whirlpool spins you up and you can go to the top of the whirlpool or you can get spit out along the way or you can get sucked down in it, you know.
Speaker 2:And so in 1980, I got busted on a sting with a kilo of cocaine and I went away to prison. I went away to a camp. Back then, a kilo of cocaine held a sentence of 24 to 36 months. Well, when I went away to prison which I mean people, you really can't hardly call it a prison it was like a college campus. We had weights and you played softball and you ran I mean, there was no fence and you're around all these people in there that have done crimes like growing pot or make counterfeiting money or flying drugs in or whatever they're doing, and you're around them and next thing you know you're talking was. It was a finishing school and and it was like, uh, when you get out, it's like, do I want to go back and start digging ditches again or or or what you know? And it was just I got out and and I tried to go back I just want to ask you what, what uh correctional facility?
Speaker 1:was this for our viewers?
Speaker 2:Eglin Airport Base.
Speaker 1:Okay, and that's up on the panhandle right.
Speaker 2:Up on the panhandle. I've been there as a marshal, we talked about that.
Speaker 1:And it is the way you described it it's a camp. It was a camp.
Speaker 2:Yeah, there's tennis courts Bowling alley.
Speaker 1:I remember going there, yes.
Speaker 2:So go ahead.
Speaker 1:You were released and went back in.
Speaker 2:I was released and I started building, you know, doing construction, and somebody came to me and said, hey, do you want to do a trip? I'll pay you $250,000. And I was like, yeah, I'm in. And so I went down, I took a boat, went to the Bahamas, brought back a load of cocaine and then that load of cocaine went into another one and I did three or four trips and we had bought a hunting camp in Alabama, my partner and I, and we went up there one time and the guy was like one of the guys, one of the owners of the of the trips that we had done with with the cocaine. He was like, why don't we just fly it up here? And so we started flying it up there. We had worked in Belize and we had a connection in Belize to stop and get fuel, and so we started flying it into Alabama.
Speaker 2:And Alabama was, you know, by the time this rolls around, we're talking like 1985, 86, 87, and it's a lot different than it was in the keys in 1973 and in the. In the keys then now they had DEA, they had customs and they had they were doing interdiction in the keys quite, you know, quite heavy. And so the radios that we listened to, the scanners and everything we listened to would be squawking all night long. They'd be chasing people. Everybody was.
Speaker 2:You know, there was different people trying to do, different organizations trying to bring in drugs. They'd be chasing people all over the place. We'd go up to alabama with the same scanners and same frequencies and plug them in and it'd just be flatline. It'd be nothing. You hear nothing, you know. And so it was like we went back into the 70s in Alabama. You know, there was nothing there, nobody there, to stop you. And so we started working there and all I ever did with the drugs was transport them. And all I ever did with the drugs was transport them. I brought them from point A to point B and I handed them off and I collected the money for it.
Speaker 1:Where was this in Alabama?
Speaker 2:What part. We were bringing it into a little strip called Demopolis, alabama, and it's right outside of Livingston, it's about 30 miles from Meridian Mississippi, and so we were refueling the airplanes in Belize. We would leave Miami, fly across Cuba, land in Columbia It'd be an eight-hour trip and then we'd fuel up in Columbia, put the drugs on and fly to Belize, which is a six-hour trip, put fuel on there and then to Alabama was five hours and we would come right in through Mobile Bay, right on the deck, and then, once we got to by the Mobile airport, we'd fly up and raise up to 2,500 feet and fly up to where my hunting camp was in Demopolis, and it was back then. It was fairly easy to do. The only thing you had to worry about we'd slow down. When you'd get 100 miles out, we'd get down on the deck and slow down and we'd look like a helicopter that was flying people back and forth to the oil rigs. You know, at night out there.
Speaker 2:And um, it was, it was. You know, it was a very easy to do. There was, um, it wasn't. You weren't getting chased all the time, you, the only time we ever had any problem with any anybody getting jumping on us was um, there was fog, the whole the whole Bay golf was fogged up and the pilot had to climb above the fog and he went up about 2,500 foot and they picked him up on NORAD when he broke the 80s and so they scrambled jets on him and they couldn't ID him and he was only doing 100 knots. So they came by him two or three times in F-16s and tried to ID him, but it was pitch black and he didn't have his lights on, and so they said he was a high wing single and they returned to base, which was in El Paso. Okay, that was the only Go ahead.
Speaker 1:Let me just ask these questions. So you were most of the marijuana smuggling and that was in the late seventies and it was coming out of the Bahamas into the Keys?
Speaker 2:Yeah, we know the marijuana was coming from Columbia. Okay, yeah, they were bringing shrimpers, yeah.
Speaker 1:Okay, coming in that way. How did you get involved in the air smuggling business? How did that come up, did you? I mean, how did you learn to trade with that, did you I?
Speaker 2:mean, how did you learn the trade with that?
Speaker 2:Well, I had a partner who was a pilot and when I, when we first started working in Belize, we used to race boats.
Speaker 2:And so when I, when we first started working in Belize, it was a guy that we raced boats with had a connection there and he told us about this, you know, and we saw, we went down and checked it all out and everything, and we ended up flying some marijuana out of Belize and back into Louisiana and throwing it out, you know, airdropping it, and that led to the refueling spot. And that led to the refueling spot. Since we had the connection there for the marijuana, we had to get the fuel anyway when we'd go to get the pot. So we ended up with the same spot, same strip and everything we were using down there. We had two or three different strips we were using and we used the same people that we used when we were picking up pot, but we didn't pick it up. We were stopping there to just get fuel and it would take 20 minutes on the ground to get the fuel, yeah, and then we'd head into Alabama with it.
Speaker 1:Okay, all right, and now let me just ask, and I'm very interested I didn't get into the drug investigation business until 1993. Okay, prior to that, you know I told you before I was a marshal and we'll talk about the institutions later and that and the conversation, and I was in fraud and money laundering before I went into the narcotics field. Um, was this, if you could describe, uh, was this part of like there's a movie, uh, with Tom Cruise, that uh.
Speaker 1:American Berry Seal yeah, with Berry Seal. Did you run into these kind of people in your trade or?
Speaker 2:oh yeah yeah I, I did, absolutely. You know, uh, I never met barry seal, thank god, but um, he he was, he flew basically the same airplanes we were flying. We were flying panther navajos and, um, he was, from what I've heard and you know, from people that knew him and that I met later on, um, he was a very good pilot, he was, uh, he didn't look like Tom Cruise, he was heavyset, but um, I think you know, the movie that they made was pretty much on point as far as his, his life and and, uh, what he did.
Speaker 1:Okay, and did you? Uh, what, uh what, who is? Who is the? Uh, what group of the colombians was there? Was it carlos later's territory back then, or or?
Speaker 2:ochoa, carlos, yeah, it was, it was, uh, the ochoas and and pablo esc.
Speaker 1:Okay.
Speaker 2:Yeah, later he was gone. I think he got busted in 86, if I'm not mistaken, I think his whole empire in the Bahamas at Norman's Cay and everything. I think that all crumbled around 1986.
Speaker 1:Okay, and with this, now, one of the things that I worked for Customs. As you know, we have an individual, his name is Charlie Jordan, and he was involved with corruption within Customs, and that Did you have the opportunity to meet him. Yes, I did, and that Did you have the opportunity to meet him.
Speaker 2:Yes, I did.
Speaker 1:I know our viewers that are going to be in customs. This was quite a turbulent period. I came in 1988 to customs and his name was thrown around. I think he was still a fugitive back then. But if you could explain your interaction with Charlie Jordan, that would be very informative.
Speaker 2:Well, like I told you before, we started flying out of Belize and airdropping in a little place called Whiskey Bay, right outside Baton Rouge, louisiana, and I went to look at some strips up there to offload. We were planning on landing at first and I met a guy you know through the racing boat racing, and so we flew up there to see him and went to a little town called Apalouse and we went right into the middle of a hornet's nest. It was, you know. When I called him on the phone, his phone was wiretapped and so I said, hey, I'm here, this is Dickie, you know. And he says oh, I'll meet you at the airport. So he drove over to the airport and he got in the airplane with us and back then they didn't have GPS, they had just Loran. And back then they didn't have GPS, they had just Loran. But we went flying around his area there in Opelous and he had crawfish farms and so down the middle of the crawfish farms you had these get our way points and mark a few of these and just land on these, on these crawfish farms.
Speaker 2:And after we came back to the airport and dropped him off, we flew to Baton Rouge and customs followed us in an airplane and then we landed, we went and got a hotel room and then went out to dinner that night and then the next night we flew to to dinner that night and then the next night we flew to meridian, mississippi, and rented a van to go to our hunting camp. Well, they tried to break in the airplane at baton rouge and put a transponder in it and then they couldn't get into the airplane. And so then they went and they put a. They put a guy in the tower at meridian to watch the airplane, because they figured we were going to do something there. Well, we went hunting. We went turkey hunting. So when we came back, the woman at the rental agency, I got in the van and she drove me back over to the airplane from the fixed base there and she handed me a card of a customs agent and she said this man was very interested in you and I gave her a pretty good size tip and said thank you so much. And I went back and I told my partner. I said hey, customs was checking on us here and you know this and that. And he said what do you think it's from? Said I don't know.
Speaker 2:So when we got back to the keys. Charlie Jordan lived about four houses away from him on a on a lagoon, so he flagged him over, you know, over to the dock one day he says, hey, can I talk to you for a minute? He comes over and he says, well, what do you have to do with Louisiana? And of course my partner was like, well, nothing, you know what are you talking about. And he threw down the investigative reports that had been generated by all the agents that had been tracking us and following us around and he said, well, read that and tell me it's nothing. And then he says I want to work.
Speaker 2:And when my partner came to me and said that he wanted to work, I was like, oh, you've got to be crazy. You know, he's the head guy and he goes. I'm telling you he wants to work. So he ended up we would do airdrops in the bay behind. You know, back here in the Keys we would do airdrops and Charlie Jordan would be on a bridge and when the airplane came across the bridge he'd tell them you know, you're clean and green, everything's good. And he'd be talking to us on the radio and he was very corrupt.
Speaker 1:So how would he do this? Would he have the customs radio and your radio?
Speaker 2:Yeah, and he'd talk to you, tell me how it worked. Yeah, he would send his guys to north key largo or something. He'd say, you know, there was something going on up there, and he'd send the guys up up north and we'd be down south and, uh, he would just, or he would just, they wouldn't be out there. He would just say, you know? I mean, he knew when they were going, he knew their schedules, and he would tell us you know when, when the awacs was up, and he would tell us who was flying. Yeah, he would tell us everything, wow.
Speaker 1:Because you know his exploits are within the agency. There was a lot of—he was a fugitive and, quite frankly, an embarrassment to the US Customs Service for this kind of thing that was going on. Plus, he put the agent's life in Alabama and in the area and everything coming in. What happened and where did things go wrong?
Speaker 2:Well, nothing ever really went wrong. I mean as far as I mean what went wrong was I got busted wrong. I mean as far as I I mean what went wrong was I got busted, but really I mean as far as I never really got busted in the middle of doing anything. You know, it was all, it was all. You know people saying this, people saying that, and they, they made a case by proffering these people and debriefing these people. I never.
Speaker 2:You know, it's like a bank robber goes into a bank and robs a bank and a dye pack blows up in his face and he's painted red and he comes out he's guilty of robbing that bank. You don't need anybody to say, yeah, that's him, he did it. You know, but I was never caught with my hand in the cookie jar. I never got caught with any drugs. And it was, you know, and I was guilty of what I did. I know. You know I tell people I said I was guilty of smuggling drugs, but I wasn't guilty of smuggling what I was charged with. You know that the amount of drugs that I was charged with there was I never. I didn't do that. And then you know, you know that the amount of drugs that I was charged with there was I never I didn't do that.
Speaker 2:And then you know you you take, when you go to trial and your, your people that you worked for, you brought trips for, are testifying against you on the stand and they're trying to say that you're the big guy. And and you know, I wasn't the big guy I was. I was just a guy that offloaded airplanes and brought airplanes. I wasn't. It wasn't my drugs, I didn't own the drugs. I was getting paid to transport the drugs and you know they make you out, they want it, want you to be the kingpin and it. I guess it's better for them the press is better if they got a drugink then than if they got an offloader and I was made the poster boy there. You know I was like it was me and I ended up getting really I got the only life sentence. Out of the whole there was 20, 28 people finally got arrested in my case.
Speaker 1:This was a CCE case Continuing Criminal. Enterprise when it just came into effect.
Speaker 2:Right, it was fairly new yeah, 1987. And that was when the new law came into effect had a good lawyer and we fought. They offered me a deal, if I would plead guilty and testify against my friends and everything, that they would give me a life sentence. And you know, first off, I wasn't going to testify against my friends and secondly, a life sentence isn't a very good deal. And so I had to go to trial. I was, you know, I. I, I was the cce, that was a kingpin statute. Uh, you got acquitted of, he said. So you know, at least you're not facing life.
Speaker 2:Well, they use acquitted conduct. The judge uses of what's called acquitted conduct. They've been using it for 30 some years and what acquitted is is they go by a standard that's a lot lower than the beyond reasonable doubt. The standard that they go by is the preponderance of evidence standard. And so at my sentencing, even though I was acquitted of being the leader, even though I was acquitted of being the leader, the judge enhanced me saying by the preponderance of the evidence and by everybody talking in court saying this and that about me, because they were trained to say that. He felt that I about 26 years, so I go and I'm automatically a 36. And now I've got four more points, which puts me at a 40. Then I get two points for carrying a firearm, which I didn't carry a firearm, and the judge by the preponderance of evidence, because one of the cooperating individuals said that I had a Uzi in the trunk while I was in a suburban. There's not a trunk in a suburban, so I mean it was just something to better his testimony and make him look better, and so I got two points for that. And then I got two points for obstruction of justice because I was hiding assets when in fact I gave all of our. My ex-wife was indicted because I wouldn't cooperate. So they indicted her with, charged her with money laundering. So as part of her plea agreement we gave them all the assets that they had taken, and so I'm now a level 44. Well, the highest the level goes in the guidelines is 43. That's a life sentence. And so I got life on seven counts.
Speaker 2:And you know to say that the sentencing is draconian is an understatement, because if you get a 10-year sentence, after five years your life has changed quite dramatically. Your wife's gone, your kids are calling somebody else daddy and your money's gone. The lawyers have got your money and then you do another five years on top of that. So those 10 years would be pretty hard on you. But then when you give somebody a life sentence where you have no hope of ever getting out because the life sentences that are today they're not an old law sentence where a 30-year sentence was a life sentence before. Under old law you were eligible for parole in 10 years and the most you had to do was 30. But nowadays you have to die in prison.
Speaker 2:If you get a life sentence it's life without parole, and so the sentencing that they do today is just, I mean it's so unjust and so unfair. It doesn't fit the crime. I know, if there's a heinous crime, I understand why you would want to give somebody life to keep them off the street. But in my case, and a lot of people that I know that are friends of mine, we never hurt anybody in our life. We didn't shoot people up, we didn't kill people. I mean I had murderers that I was in prison with, that got out before I got out, you know, and they killed people inside the institution also, you know, and I was around that type of individual most of my sentence.
Speaker 2:But you know you give somebody 10 years, it's enough time to make you change your life. You give them 20 years, it's like what's the extra 10 for? And then you give them 30, what's the extra? You know, it's just like it makes no sense to keep somebody in prison, especially if they're rehabbing. But there's not really a whole lot of rehab in the federal system because there's nothing there. They don't have any type of technical schools to help you when you get out. I saw so many people in the 31 years that I was incarcerated. I saw so many people come and go. Come and go because they would get out. They didn't have any people out there because their sentences were long to begin with but they burned all the bridges out there because they were addicted to drugs or whatever they were doing and they would come back to prison and it would be like, hey, how you doing, I'm back and then next thing you know they're leaving again.
Speaker 1:The other thing that's interesting is and I've talked to Evelyn Bazan-Poppa about that is you would actually see correctional officers go into and watch them retire. They were rookies. Then they retire in 25 years you know which is amazing.
Speaker 2:I saw that Yep. I saw a lot of them retire.
Speaker 1:Now, when you were convicted, where did you go let's talk about that after your trial, where did you do your time at and what happened when you were incarcerated? I know you've had escapes and that, but just talking about that, and if you could let the people, the people know what what prison life is like I've seen the inside of marion and uh, been there and dealt with the gangs inside and when I was a marshal doing intelligence reports and things like that. So if you could shed what happened after that and uh, then we'll talk.
Speaker 2:We'll go back to talking about your sentencing, what you're trying an FCI, which is a medium security prison and that was where I was designated, and there were quite a few guys there that had life sentences, and I got sentenced on December 15th of 1989. And my mother passed away on January 5th of of 90. And uh, I started. I started plotting to escape, because, you know, when a man gets down to nothing, he's got nothing to lose. And I really had nothing to lose. And uh, so I started plotting to escape and I saw a produce truck came in and I was working in the kitchen. They had had a riot right before I got there. The Cubans had rioted and so I got a job in the facilities as a welder, and I'd never welded, but they were going to teach me. And so they wanted me to go over to the Cuban unit and weld these plates over the windows, because the Cubans had been breaking the windows out. And I refused to do that, you know, because it's a security job and it's something that they should have to do, not inmates. So they wrote me an incident report for refusing to work and they locked me up and I was in the.
Speaker 2:I was in the hole about a week and my unit team came in and they said well, we're going to let you out, but we're going to put you in the kitchen. And I said I don't care, you can put me anywhere you want to put me. So they put me in the kitchen and I think it was like either the first or second day I was in the kitchen, I went out on the back dock and I was sitting out there on like having a taking a little break and here come the produce truck in there and it had muffler, was hanging off and it was loud and it came bubbling in, you know, and I said, wow, this is, uh, this is pretty interesting. I said, you know, in the keys we had we had a truck similar, you know, to what I had in mind, to we used to haul pot out in and had a false wall built in it. So I I got together with a.
Speaker 2:He was a dirt track racer and I started talking to him about who fabricated his cars and he had a guy that was local there. He was, he was a local guy, he was from Georgia and he said he had a guy that you know was great fabricator. And I said, well, how about you think he would work on a truck for me? And he's like, yeah, for what? And I said, well, how about you think he would work on a truck for me? And he's like, yeah, for what? And I said, well, I want to put a false wall in the truck and bring some produce in here. And he was like, well, yeah, can I go with you? And I'm like, hell, yeah, you can go with me, you know.
Speaker 2:So he started plotting with me and we've got it all set up. We got the bill from the warehouse of the produce, which it was the same produce every week, but they had two different companies that would bid on it. They had Dixie Produce and they had Gladstone Produce, and so we didn't know which company was going to get the bid for when we were getting ready to leave, because they came every Tuesday. So we had magnetic signs made up with Dixie and we had magnetic signs made up with the Gladstone produce, and so we got, we found out who got the bid and we went and got our own load of produce at Atlanta at the farmer's market.
Speaker 1:Where did you get these signs made?
Speaker 2:We had somebody out there, you know, make them. We had, his father was involved and his brother was involved and uh, I had, I had money back then they hadn't seized all my money yet, so I had money and I was kind of putting the bill on everything. And so they, they, uh, they got the produce, they got the signs made up and and, uh, tuesday rolled around like clockwork I mean it worked out perfect. And uh, they, that was probably the worst possible thing that I could have ever done was escape, because from that, you know, I was gone. I was out on the street for five months and in those five months, uh, my appeal, I got captured. I was gone five months and I escaped on March 27th and I was captured on August 29th and my appeal was dismissed on August 14th. So those 15 days that after my appeal was dismissed I got, I got captured, and so we asked for reconsideration because I was now in custody, because the reason they dismissed my appeal was because I wasn't there to be adjudicated, yeah.
Speaker 2:I was a fugitive and they couldn't adjudicate me. So they said I had no right to an appeal and it was an old doctrine from 1896. And so they dismissed my appeal and my two co-defendants I only had two co-defendants out of 28 people there were, five of us went to trial, two got acquitted and three of us got convicted out of 28 people. So my co-defendants, their appeal was heard about 16 or 18 months after I was captured and it got reversed or remanded due to prostitorial misconduct. Now, if I hadn't escaped, I'd have been right there with them and I'd have been home many, many years ago, and that you know. It's a coulda, shoulda, woulda thing. But I know now you know I would never have escaped.
Speaker 2:But when I was in that situation and everything, every motion that we filed in court during my trial, every motion was denied. There was nothing that was granted, nothing and it was just like it was like, and after, after the escape and my post-conviction stuff that I filed, everything was denied. It was all procedurally barred because of the escape. So I had nothing coming from the court period. Yeah, it was not good. The escape was a bad plan.
Speaker 1:So how did you get captured?
Speaker 2:I got captured, I had put money away overseas. Captured, I had put money away overseas, and so I contacted my friend that had helped me put the money over there. And it just so happens that he was in the process of thinking it was his money and so he told me I couldn't go near it. It had been froze, so I couldn't go and get a job anywhere and work anywhere and I didn't have money. So I started putting together a trip and Pablo Escobar was still alive. He didn't get killed until 93.
Speaker 2:And so I started putting together a trip and I got hooked up with a DEA informant and a customs informant. And I'm sitting in a restaurant having lunch with these two informants and neither of them knew each other was an informant. And yeah, yeah, and there was a $50,000 reward on my head. So I was a prize for this guy, the customs informant. And the DEA informant was a rogue. He was lying to his handler that you know we were bringing the drugs into El Paso, texas and this, and that they were going to rob, they were going to steal the drugs. It was just completely a mix, bad mix. I went out of my domain and I got with the wrong people, and I ended up getting captured over it.
Speaker 1:Okay, and what happened after that, after you were captured?
Speaker 2:After that, yeah, then I went to.
Speaker 2:Since I left an FCI on the escape, my security was jacked up.
Speaker 2:So I went to a penitentiary now and I went to Terre Haute and, uh, when I got to Terre Haute, indiana, I started plotting again because I wasn't, I was not giving up, I was trying to get away, because that was the only hope I had, I you know. So I started plotting again and I got my sister involved and I got with a guy that I thought was a good guy and of course, my, my character judgment was had a had a big flaw in it with this guy too, and he was telling them everything that was going on. So I mean the, the, the escape was doomed from the day we started plotting it and I think he had a 30-year sentence for a CCE out of Michigan and he ended up getting that squashed by setting the escape up and getting me busted, getting my sister busted, getting this other friend of mine busted, and so from there, the next stop was Marion, which is they built Marion to take the place of Alcatraz, and so I went to Marion and I'm in Marion for about three years and it's locked down. You're locked in your cell for 23 hours a day.
Speaker 1:You said you were there so you know how it is Control unit. I know exactly. And that was that was the top of the line back in the day and you had 23 and a half hours in the half hour exercise.
Speaker 2:Yeah, yeah, your exercise is in a little dog kennel area yeah. It was a very, very nasty place, and you're around a bunch of very dangerous people too you know, um, it's probably the most safe, uh, safest, uh place as far as the guards go, because they're you know they're, they're when they're when you're out of your cell, you're in handcuffs if you're around an officer, there's, and there's, always two of them. But even at that they still had two guards murdered there in 1983.
Speaker 1:Yes, in 1983.
Speaker 2:And from there. When they opened up ADX in Colorado, I was transferred there and basically they just moved everybody out of Marion to ADX. So I was moved to ADX. I I did about three more years there at and before they transferred me out, and then they sent me to Atlanta and from Atlanta they trumped up some kind of an escape plot that I had.
Speaker 2:I didn't do anything in Atlanta. If I, if I did, I would tell you now because I'm an open book, I have nothing to hide. But in Atlanta I really did not do anything. It was just some guy was trying to get him better himself and he got, came up to me right after they opened the doors at count time and shook my hand and I said, well, he, you just got here and I walked him around the yard and introduced him to people and the whole time he was trying to set me up on an escape and there was two or three people that were involved with me that I didn't even know them. But they locked me up and sent me back to ADX for this escape and so then I left ADX. That time I ended up doing like 10 years total in ADX and Marion.
Speaker 1:Tell our viewers what ADX is.
Speaker 2:ADX is it's ADMAX, it's the prison that's in Florence, colorado. It's probably the most secure prison in the country or in the world. I mean it's got. That's where they keep the terrorists, that's where they have the trade know the, the trade center bombers. They have Eric Rudolph, they have you know a lot of the high profile gang members are there and it just cuts your communications with your the outside world off completely. You are, there is nothing. You get one phone call a month and I mean it's, it's not, it's not a good place to be. And so I left there and went from there across to the penitentiary and I left the penitentiary and went to Coleman Florida and I was in Coleman Florida and that's where I ended up. I ended up going, coming home from Coleman, okay On a compassionate basis.
Speaker 1:Yes, Can we? Can we? We're going to talk about that. And, and you had, you had the support of the DEA agents involved in your case, and I think that's important too. We talked about that. Um, and if you could go into when you went to Coleman and what led up to your, your release.
Speaker 2:The um. I had filed a couple of times, uh, I had filed a pro se motion, uh, for compassion release and it had been denied. And then the professor her name is Katie Tinto, she's the law professor at UC Irvine in California and she saw she read about I had a lot of support from the Keys. Like I said at the beginning of this, you know the Keys are, it's a small place, we live on an island and back in the day I I don't know if you'd say I was a bank, but I gave a lot of people money. I, anybody that came to me needing anything a car, a house, a lot, whatever. They needed money for this money. For that I gave people money. I wasn't, you know, I wasn't robbing and like Robin Hood, I wasn't doing the Robin Hood thing, but I was. I had money and so I didn't. I was, I gave it away freely and I mean I tipped the waitresses and the barmaids and everybody very well and I took care of everybody and people that weren't really even my friends I'd lend money to. I just was good. I was good with people and I. So I had a lot of people that cared about me and and and love me and they were, you know, they were all advocating for my freedom and the Miami Herald had done an article. The little paper down here, the little free press, had done an article about me coming home and they had a parade where they were had some flags and stuff with my you know, banners on there with my names and stuff bring me home. And so when, when Katie read this in the paper, she wrote me a letter and she said you know, she explained who she was and she said I've read your case, I've read everything about your compassion release, she said and you know, now that the first step act has come into play, she said the criteria has changed. And she said and the judge in your case, I think that he really went by the old criteria and not the new criteria. Well, the new criteria is that you have to show extraordinary, compelling reasons why you deserve a compassion release and you have to have done 10 years of your sentence. Well, I had done 10 years of my sentence, I'd done 31.
Speaker 2:And I had some issues with my heart. My, my medical was not good and so I had stents in my heart and some kidney problems, and you don't get very good medical care in the prison. I mean, it's anything that you, anything that you have wrong. It takes a very long time and most of the time you have to go, you have to. It's like the administrative remedy process is like filing a lawsuit against the prison, but it's in-house.
Speaker 2:So you have to go through these steps, which they call it. There's a BP-8, there's a BP-9, bp-10, bp-11, and they go all the way up the chain of command to Washington. You go from the. The first person you ask is your counselor and he's that's an informal resolution which is is a BP 8 and he denies whatever you're requesting. And then you go to the warden on a BP 9 and he denies it and it goes to the. Then you go to the regional director and they deny it. They all just say we go, we're going to go with what the warden said, we're going to go with what the regional director says. And this process takes a year or two, sometimes two years, and sometimes, when it gets to the last phase of it, you won't even hear from them. They won't even answer you back.
Speaker 2:So then you have, once you've exhausted these remedies, then you can go into court with a lawsuit, a civil suit, and say that you're not getting medical care, and the Supreme Court says that you're, you're supposed to be, you're supposed to have exactly the same medical care you would have on the street. But it's not like that in the federal system. So I, you know, I had, I had a lot of medical issues. And so Katie said she wanted to put three of her students on my case. And I was like how much you know? She's no, no, no, we're free, we're a nonprofit. And I'm like, come on down, cause I had spent so much money with lawyers over the years. I'm like this is amazing, you're going to do my work, this work, for free.
Speaker 2:And so they filed the petition, and, and when they filed the petition, I, the government, had to respond to it. And of course, they came with exactly the same thing that they'd always, you know. Oh, I had escaped. I'm this, I'm that, I'm violent, I'm no, oh, I had escaped. I'm this, I'm that, I'm violent, I'm no, you know, it just was 25 pages of the same rhetoric that I had read so many different times, and I just threw it on the locker and I said I don't have anything coming, you know.
Speaker 2:And a few days later the door opened up. The officer was standing there and he asked me for my name and my ID card and I gave it to him. He asked me my number. He's looking at my card and your card has your number and your picture on it. I said it's on the card. He said no, I want to hear it from you. I told him my number and he says well, come with me. And I said, all right, let me get my shoes. And he goes no, you don't need them.
Speaker 2:And we were locked down because of COVID and so I said no, I'm getting my shoes. So I sat on my bed and I tied, laced my tennis shoes up and I'm going down the stairs. And as we're going down, of course we had to wear a mask. And he, he had a mask on and he says uh, he asked me if I believed in God and I said absolutely. And he said, uh, okay.
Speaker 2:I said what's this about? He goes, he goes yo, you're going to find out. And I'm like is it my lawyer? Or who is this? Where am I? You know? He says you're, you're, you're going to find out.
Speaker 2:So I went in his office and he dialed the phone and he's got a folder in his hand and I said is this, what is this my lawyer? And he's like he says, just hang on, you're going to find out. And so he said, I got him right here and he hands me the phone and it's Katie on the other end screaming that my compassion release had been granted. And so I started crying. She was crying and I looked over and he was crying yeah, it was something else, you know.
Speaker 2:And then I had to go back up the stairs because, like I said, it was locked down so nobody was out of their cells. And I had to go back up and everybody's in the window looking what's going on, you know. And I had to go by my buddy's cell and tell him hey, I was granted compassion release and I had 14 days before I was released. So you can imagine 14 days of just waiting and shredding papers all my legal, all my stacks of transcripts and all the motions I'd filed over the years. I was just shredding him up and putting him in garbage bags every day, every day. Yeah, it was pretty special.
Speaker 1:So tell me about your release. They took you to R&D and your family came out.
Speaker 2:My God, not only my family, everybody came. I mean, I went to R and d and the officer I knew him, of course, you know I, because I, I with the officers, I, I have officers to this day, okay, that were guards guarding me, that are friends of mine, that come down here and go out on the boat with me. You know they're, they're, they were good guys and and I I always treated them with respect and they treated me with respect. And and the ones that would, the ones like that you, you know they're just like, they're just like us, they're just, they're good people.
Speaker 2:You know there were, there were some that were that tried to be, they tried to be hard, hard-nosed with you and be assholes to you Excuse my French, but they tried to be bad to you. And those guys, I don't care about having a beer with them or taking them out in a boat, but the guys that gave me respect, I care for them. They're good people. They weren't there, they were just there to do their eight hours and go home, that's it, yeah, and that's you know.
Speaker 2:You give respect, you get respect 100.
Speaker 1:So what have you been doing since you've been released and what do you see in the future? I know that you've given lectures and Smuggling the Keys, which I watched. It was very interesting, and what are you planning to do? You know you obviously have grandchildren, which are wonderful.
Speaker 2:Yeah, I have five and one on the way and they're all great kids and you know I'd like to take them out, you know, go fishing with them. And I've been doing a lot of fishing. I've been doing, you know, and I've done a lot of odd, you know, odd jobs, handyman jobs and stuff like that around town here, and it's I've just been. I've been blessed to be where I'm at right now. I've got a beautiful girl and we have a great life together. She's got three grandkids of her own and we spend a lot of time with her family and we have a great time. We're blessed to have each other a great time.
Speaker 1:We're blessed to have each other. What message? Because you've had seven life sentences and that's probably the most sentenced prisoner I've ever or inmate I've ever heard of getting seven. I mean even the guys that, like you said before, that were part of committed homicides in prison. They got life. And they got, you know, another consecutive conspiracy to commit murder. They got two lives, you know.
Speaker 2:You got seven.
Speaker 1:That's how the times were back then, and not what would you give as advice to a first-time inmate in the future Just based on, I mean, your story. The book, everything gives a big picture. But what would be the biggest advice you would give and I appreciate the candor what would be the biggest advice you would give? And I appreciate the candor, you know, like you said, you were making $4 an hour and somebody hands you a bag of $35,000 in the 70s.
Speaker 2:I mean, that's like amazing, Exactly yeah.
Speaker 2:But what advice would you give to somebody? You know, as far as giving somebody advice, uh, you know, I, like my son, I, you know if, if, if something sounds too good to be true, it it, it is too good to be true, it's, it's usually it, and it's like to this day and age, it's. You get all these things on your phone, these people trying to scam you online and stuff, and I, you know, if it sounds too good to be true, you step away from it. You know, and as far as the drugs go, I, you know I never really saw the the addict side of the drugs until I got into the Mobile County jail. I, you know there were a lot of heroin users that were in there and in the prison system too. I mean, there's a lot of drug addicts and you know we call them dope fiends and they were, literally they would do anything to get drugs and I guess they were the same on the street, that's, you know, robbing, stealing, doing whatever you know, carjacking, doing whatever they had to do. And it's like I would tell my son, you know, when you stop at a red light, when he was in Tampa going to school, I said, when you stop at that light at three o'clock in the morning and there's nobody around. I said you know they'll run out and take your car. And he was like, oh dad, no, they won't do that. I said, no, I hear stories about it every day. I hear them in here talking about it, so I know that they do that. And I said and if you don't give them your car, they will shoot you. And I said so, just, you know, you got to just be careful.
Speaker 2:But as far as somebody I gave, I mentored a lot of people when I was in prison. I tried to get guys off of drugs and I tried to work with them and stuff. And we had a group. When I was in Florence no, I mean, I'm sorry, excuse me when we were in Coleman, we had a group and we called it Ste it, stepping Out, and what we did. There was a in Colorado Springs. There was a juvenile detention center and we would write, we would have these meetings and we would write letters to these kids that were in the juvenile detention thing and we all we all had different kids that we would write to and we'd write them and try to tell them. I mean it wasn't a scared straight thing, but we would try to tell them.
Speaker 2:You know what it's like in there. You know it's like I've always said that if the judges in the federal courts were to have to spend two weeks in a penitentiary, they would think twice about giving somebody these draconian sentences. You know, because in two weeks you would see some crazy stuff go on. You know and it's. You know there's predators, there's. It's not prison.
Speaker 2:A penitentiary is not a good place and the only thing I could tell somebody that was coming in is to try to better yourself, try to take courses, try to take class. You know, whatever class you can take, I took the Microsoft computer, I took everything that was offered to me, and especially when you're in ADX, because you're locked there in your cell and everything you had to take, every class you took, was on the TV you didn't have somebody instructing you. But in penitentiaries or in FCIs you have to have people teaching you. You know other inmates will teach you.
Speaker 2:You know a lot of kids come in there. They don't have their GEDs and that's the first thing you would want to get get your GED. And so when you do get out of prison, you have, you have something to fall back on, you know, but um, I you know it's uh, I just think that the the time that people get for the crimes that they're committing, that this day and age is. It's ridiculous people there. I mean there's still people doing life sentences for marijuana, and it's legal in what? 28 states, and soon to be legal, maybe even in the federal system.
Speaker 1:Yeah, the drug that's really poisonous today is fentanyl.
Speaker 2:Fentanyl yeah.
Speaker 1:And that is something you take and you die, I mean the population they're losing is of the population of Lake Lakeland, florida, and day. I mean, that's just frightening, that's. That's something that I mean. Don't get me started. You know how I feel about border control.
Speaker 1:I retired from ICE and and you know the people that are getting here and coming in a different method let's just say, not the method that my ancestors came here from Ireland. So so I think that needs, that needs to be addressed. Plus, the United States has the biggest supply and demand for drugs in the world. Absolutely, you know, yeah, so it's uh something that they hope to to address, but uh, no, I want I I hope you'll come on again because we're having uh discussions on this. I'm'm. You know, I've had all the everybody on here is a practitioner one way or another. One of the things that I felt was important in doing this is to have the whole spectrum. You know there's plenty of shows, just law enforcement, just correctional advocacy and all that, but combine them and most of your people that you see in the media, they're talking heads. Let's just call it like it is. You know, dickie it is.
Speaker 1:They were chiefs of police, they had political careers. Other people talk about you know advocacy for inmates, and the best people to talk about that are people like you that are out now and moving on with their life. It's just plain and simple. I mean, we have the experience, we have white hair now and a little heavier and that, but it's something that, that, uh, that needs to be brought to the attention.
Speaker 2:so thank you very much.
Speaker 1:Please give my best to judy and uh, we'll talk, thank you I will okay see you bye.