Kevin Chiles on His Rise & Fall as a Harlem Drug Kingpin (Full Interview)

here we go we have former Harlem drug kingpin and author of the book the crack era the rise fall and redemption of Kevin child's in the building thank you for having me black absolutely appreciate absolutely well we've known of each other for a long time now mr. back almost 20 years that's a fact but it was actually the first time we're sitting down together yeah we sweep we've crossed paths and a couple of times when you write this is actually the first time really so let's go ahead and start in the very beginning well you grew up in the Bronx yes you were born Highbridge or you know when you were a kid in hydrogen a kid in hyper absolute hip then you move to sound view right when you were 14 right that's the Bronx as well North Bronx exactly and you actually grew up in a two-parent home I did your mom had two kids myself and my little brother my younger brother actually yeah what was the age difference two years okay pretty close yeah pretty much well even though you had both parents you guys are still struggling yes okay so talk about the struggle as a kid my mother worked consistently my father worked construction and bagdana construction might you know last month or so maybe two months three months maybe six months at the most and he may not work for another six months so it was just one it was a job that really wasn't so stable okay and I mean you were actually so poor that you were putting cardboard and your sneakers sometimes yeah I don't think it was just me it was pretty common you know this was the the neighborhood that I lived in most people had the same economical status so I think it was pretty common across the board it wasn't just me and my brother was do you know kids are the neighborhood right yet homes in your socks and right you know only a couple pairs of jeans and right okay so here you are you're growing up in the Bronx two kids dad is out of work a lot which I'm sure it's causing arguments in the house absolutely and you know as you're rolling around the Bronx you're seeing all this money get made illegally on the street uh at some point yeah that was what was happening okay at what point did you start to realize what was happened um probably the aged 11 12 13 you just seen some of the neighborhood kids was who was like maybe 70 years older than me you seen it you know they were doing certain things I wasn't quite sure what it was initially but at some point you just want to understand it cuz you're from the neighborhood you pick it up right and this is the 70s at the time yeah it is right early 70s yeah okay and back then heroin pretty much ran the drug trade um I would come to understand that yeah at some point I didn't know what it was but as I probably became a teenager I knew what it was doing here so was heroin definitely I mean were you seeing the heroin addicts on the streets and so forth I'm not so much in the Bronx it was more it was more in Harlem that I noticed it like junkies leaning and and and I guess what they were called dope fiends yeah I noticed that more in Harlem not so much in the Bronx okay and you had an uncle that actually was already a drug dealer yeah he was okay so talk about how that you and your uncle start develop your relationship well my uncle is not my blood uncle is my mother's sister's husband and they was always pretty much well-off you know and it was a distinct difference between my family and theirs so whenever I visit hit the house did you know they had cars and they lived in the suburbs so it was a stark contrast from the Bronx to the suburbs like literally night and day you kind of became a chauffeur in a way um yeah my teenage years yeah alright so you drive him around while he was doing his various illegal activities basically no no I didn't happen like that I'm doing during the 70s but well during that time most the guys who saw hammer on they actually used it as well as selling it I mean you know it was a social drug so it was even cocaine to heroin and one time I was driving with him and he was sort of like nodding off you know and you know it's sort of like it was a organic kind of thing just do the safety you know and I had you know just begun to learn how to drive so I actually end up start driving for him just for the sake of night I was getting killed right and back then I mean both heroin and cocaine were just considered so two drugs you walk into a bar and any mess sniff some cocaine open right I mean these days that's unheard of absolutely but Daniel is a commonplace yeah I mean I think you had mentioned movies like Superfly all right you know although the fly do is having a little you know file the cocaine bills they could they had in dollar bills or yeah well money you know folded up in money so you're kind of starting to see some what's happening around your uncle and back then the Italians pretty much controlled the code the the heroin business they absolutely did yeah if you want to hear that will connect the mafia that's a fact okay did you ever deal with him later on no by the time that um I was in position it was mostly Dominicans and Colombians at that point and the the drug of choice had changed it wasn't so much herring as much as it was coke and crack okay so what point did you actually start selling drugs yourself probably well I started selling marijuana in high school you know we would buy like a twenty dollar bags $10 bags and he was sell loose joints she would maybe double your money so if we spent $50 million hundred dollars and that was sort of like a hustle that I did in high school you know to get by I mean prior to that I did I didn't hustles but the actual progression of selling narcotics was marijuana and probably about the temp level great okay when did it uh graduates cocaine probably my high school year going into my first year of college okay and what was the first couple deals like selling like 50s and twenty fives and grams well half grams grams you know eight balls that kind of stuff okay and I guess you were dealing with Dominicans in terms of getting it yeah initially well no initially I was getting it from my uncle when he just went once I convinced him that you know I was gonna do it with or without his help I guess he figured it'd be better off if fees order like oversaw what I was doing for the sake again safety okay so your uncle's actually supplying cocaine for you yes yeah early on early on early on but then you graduated to Dominicans and Colombians okay and back then it was sort of a you described as a lawless time they would wear like the Nicky Barnes era before you you literally had lines around the corner to the you know to the drug houses right or like broad daylight absolute cops driving around like it was it seemed almost acceptable open-air market that's exactly what it was what why didn't the cops I mean the cops aren't stupid and I see what's happening I agree with you you know I don't know um I mean you know you look at a lot of movies from back then and and and a lot of law enforcement was on the take I mean even with that being the case like it just was so obvious that there had to be an explanation for one that I couldn't provide right because who wants to live around that who wants to live next to a delphine house you know with junkies all around right you know um but if if you were in a landscape it was so commonplace that it disappeared to be normal to the residents in the community because it's just what it was what it was okay now your uncle had a lieutenant named nappy red no nappy red was his lieutenant was a was a guy named Norman Norman was nappy Reds uncle and nappy red was his nephew okay sorry we got a slightly wrong and the two you actually became friends we did do the introduction to both of our uncles who we all consider ourselves family got it and then you guys actually went to business together eventually yeah cuz he was running a spot himself working in one now was this a cokes partner cracks it was a crack spot at this point this is about 85 a late 85 early 86 okay so crack hit Harlem absolutely before then it was just cocaine and heroin right and there was freebase but that was a rich man struck right you needed ether and you need to know what you were actually doing or else you blow up your whole house trying to make it or blow yourself up like Richard Pryor did it that's a fact so people really didn't freebase that much no no I never witnessed anyone do it right but then crack came along and it was fairly easy to make yeah you could a small amount of cocaine into a bunch of crack rocks right and increase your profit a lot and the addiction was a lot higher um I guess it all depends on you ask the heroin addiction was one compared to cocaine yes yeah that's what I'm saying I'm Eric okay yeah heroin diction is horrible right so when crack first hit a Harlem and really the whole the whole country how did you really see it go down and how did you see it affect your neighborhoods um I think well early on you you you we didn't notice it because the transition between most guys are so herring were older guys you know when crack came about the older hustlers who so herring weren't overly interested in selling crack they it was an ally to the novelty to them because of the amount of money that they made sound horror heroin is a extreme difference and selling heroin is selling crack so it was a bunch of young kids was doing it and I don't even know if we were perspective of it was when we was evaluating to see what you know it would be years later when we were realized the devastation that occurred from it right because I'm Brian Reed Freeway Ricky a bunch of times if he was saying how people really don't become crackheads overnight so a relatively slow process and I mean he was saying how he was selling to his own relatives at the time um well some of the guys who who I was down with some of their family members were using it yeah and at the time again we didn't we didn't see the wrong in it right you know did you ever sell to your own relatives no I didn't have anybody at that um in my family who actually uh used crack you know I don't I don't remember anybody you know that I knew personally for my family no so you would not be rest our own crack house right and I guess there was 12 hour shifts each of you were working it right we he would take 1224 hours he would take one ship and I would take the other side yeah so I meant okay and how successful was that for us um initially initially it was it was fair you know it was it was it wasn't like he had he had worked in a spot prior to that was actually probably doing anywhere from thirty forty thousand maybe fifty thousand a day it's okay a day right so when we first started out we probably started making a couple of hundreds and it's a couple of grands and probably at our peak we wasn't making anywhere from the same thing and the spots that we had okay so you have your first crack house you know working 12-hour shifts yourself right and you guys are fairly new and on the block pretty much um well they all grew up in Harlem and so you know it wasn't uncharted territory they grow up so we knew you know they knew that people from from neighborhood so they would lose from the neighborhood right but that still attracts a lot of attention you know um seemingly you would think that but when you're from the neighborhood you just sort of know the landscape you know you know people know you you know them okay any initial problems you know with that first spot um robberies well never wasn't so much any robberies but you know you always have the police from time to time that are coming you know we it was really odd because during that time of Harlem it was a lot of Bandhan buildings like Harlem is nothing like what it appears to Pete what it is presently like occation but back then it was a lot of banding building and what's so odd is that we actually took over a building I mean and that's probably where the the concept for the the the Carter came from from New Jack city that was actually really real we we went into the space we put metal doors up you know lights we ran electricity you know illegally and and we'd sort of just really took over buildings right but that's a brownstone you're talking about well no the brownstone was the spot that he had worked in at one point but same same thing right so you talk about an actual operability five six story building is really with like how many units in that building five floors maybe five six units on the floor but tweeted we didn't need the 25 units we only had the main floor when you walked in off the street the first apartment they're getting the whole vent the whole building was abandoned so you know you might have stashed something in another apartment but any worked out of this apartment if that part got hot then you sort of moved it around a little bit okay so you guys are running this operation you starting to make real money right how do you start to expand at that point well when you start making money he had he had a reputation you know like I said from being a person from the neighborhood and he had been making money pride too so by the time I got with him he started introducing me to the people that he'd know and from there people see you making money especially young folks we're talking about teenagers we you know we 18 19 years old so when other teenagers see you making money it just sort of naturally evolved you know it's not like you have to recruit people see you're making money you've you're in a property stricken neighborhood and people who once seen you just maybe a year ago not really have enough ins and then one year later you're driving around in foreign cars it just evolved right but recruiting someone for a legitimate job like a sneaker shop like you would own later on it's a whole lot different than bring someone into an illegal operation that could potentially bring down the whole operation right but with kids again you got to keep in mind and we literally adolescents like I don't think there was a blueprint or any real thought process that was in place we was just like if you wanted to work and you know we worked with you as you as we evolved the scrutiny came into play because certain things start happening you just naturally go evolved from experiences right because I mean Harlem has a long history of drug dealing absolutely Barnes the Frank Lucas is we idolize them that's a little right okay so how did the operation really start to grow um we it it started picking up as far as like I said early on from hundreds to thousands to tens of thousands and with that your crew got bigger what people ultimately end up working which you start expanding operation you just thought a reputation started you know our reputation started growing in the neighborhood okay at your height you said that you were netting 300,000 a week and that's when I was in DC okay and that's later later on early I mean at the height at that time while still being in New York how much for unity how much were you grossing well it's hard to say because those two days are the same you know but you got to figure if you got a shift and you make in 40 50 grand on certain days it didn't just end there because with your reputation growing then other drug dealers started gravitating to you you're not looking to purchase drugs for you so outside of whatever you may have been done doing your spots you would start wholesaling to other individuals and back then you would start like ounces mostly - again we're gonna be teenagers so you got kids who would be hustling on their own little blocks make their money make $1000 and you're selling ounces $4,000 then you run in your spot so you had a lot of that going on so on top of what you may have been doing do retail or selling to your spot then you had individual wholesalers so you know it's certain days you may make seventy five thousand you may make a hundred thousand you know it all depends on what's going on okay and you guys started to move out of town right and Washington DC became kind of a regular destination right and the reason for the reason being that we ended up in DC is because the amount of money that you make in New York City was a lot of money but but but as we evolved so did everything around us and crack became pretty popular so you had people selling crack everywhere so if something at some point conflicts start occurring you know and then you start getting hot and I had ventured out to DC because a friend of mine i tented went to DC and and came back in like two days and had sold like two ace and back then h was like $2,500 eighth so that's two weeks it's like $5,000 so basically he took $5,000 of drugs and came back in two days were like 15,000 literally in two days money right in in in in it wasn't a lot of money because we were already making a lot of money but the way he sold it and the ease that he sold it at intrigued me so I bitchin I ventured down to DC with him right that became kind of a regular stomping ground for you for years yeah because of the amount of money that we was making because you can you can buy a in New York City at the time a kilo may have been $20,000 straight from when you purchased it that same kilo in DC you could have sold for five or six points more than what it was just just as is before you did anything to it well but then eventually things got crazy in DC well whenever the illegal money is being made it you know things negativity comes with with money money comes with problems well for people you know you knew got killed in DC way more way more than way more okay how many people did you know that got killed in DC exclusively III couldn't even count on I couldn't even I couldn't you know a ridiculous amount of people lost their lives in DC like I mean if I had to put a number on it I well over thirty people probably lost their lives in DC throughout the time I was dead and this was over drug deal gone bad robberies anything that falls on the umbrella selling illegal narcotics you know there's no rules okay did you yourself have any problems in DC you always have problems you know since how you go about resolving okay well you guys want to go see a Scarface all right and you know if you saw the pain in full movie you know they're saying how that kind of like inspired everyone you know you saw this Cuban guy become a drug millionaire the country didn't just didn't just any any any person from the the crack ever can tell you that they was influenced by that Scarface right well that made you that you guys actually go to Miami again we kids I'm using in his her we actually did we saw her moving we thought everything and it was real and right we ventured off to Miami right so you literally you'd your friends went to Miami looking in Al Pacino to buy to buy cocaine without any sort of connections whatsoever a bunch of black hits in Miami watch a jury on a Monday and you guys actually managed to cop we actually did but three kilos yes we did how hard was that process to actually get from nothing to three kilos Oh at that time when went to Miami three kilos we was way beyond that at that point like so it was that was just the money we took to going literally from nothing to get to sell in three K to get to buying three kilos without knowing the single person oh you told my once we once we was in Miami yeah exactly oh well we we went with intentions on it I actually happened was there was a drought in New York at the time and what a drought is is where a ship coming into the country me got caught and the price of drugs would go from we might have been paying 20 at the time to maybe 40 or double for a kilo if you even able to get it and during that time a drought had came about and um we probably had just saw the movie maybe you know within the last couple of months or something or whatever and I don't know who came up with a bright idea it was probably a collective thing and we just jumped on a plane with a bunch of money our jewelry and went down to Miami and in hopes of fun and a connect ironically the the guy that we bumped into was actually trying to set us up and he had just kept taking us from place to place you know but again we was just so brazen and and and and and stupid that we just didn't think you know we felt invincible and that's the thing with money and especially when you give money to adolescence you know you just think you own the world like you got the figure we were newly rich you know there was no precedent set for us you know there was no financial literacy you know we we had money and we just felt like we owned the world so we was fearless you know but we end up we end up actually meeting a guy from Florida very well named don't drug till he's passed away now his name is uh Sam Ferguson they call him Pete man Sam he was a very well known drug dealer down there and when we met him he had owned a bunch of clubs and car washes and things of that sort and when he met us he and he once we started talking them he told us he said you know the guy that you know the introduced y'all to me he was trying to stick y'all up but I guess it just didn't play out you know we you know we was from the street so we we saw that we we just wasn't going to just walk into just something foolish you know mean but anyway he ends up legitimately introducing us to Sam and and from there that's where the relationship came from right and you actually bought the kilos put him in your luggage on a plane and just flew back as we did the stupidest thing ever well well in retrospect yeah well at the time you know all of the things that they haven't played with at the airport now that it was no there was no there was nothing rather there was nothing like you as a free fall right right and I guess you try to keep that Miami business going but it was just treacherous trying to get these what actually working back actually actually it wasn't because again we you know what supports a lot of the ideals that we did we was just ignorant so we would get it jump on a plane and at some point because we was going back and forth to DC people started getting caught on a plane in DC so just because of that experience it made us reluctant now to start getting on a plane from Miami so then or we did instead again on a plane we just now start getting on a train right but then people are getting caught on the train as well at some point yeah yeah the police back then seemed like they always was a couple of steps behind whatever was going on I mean in general during this time who was your main plug what was it still Dominicans did you go to Colombians um you know we we sort of like bounced around because again you know the same ideology we use one went to Florida was what what it was in a city like you know in New York City especially Harlem back then the Colombians were bringing the drugs into the country and ambiens had relationships with the Dominicans you know or culturally you know more likely because they spoke the same language the weight of the drugs was being shipped in out of the country and brought in so there's something called Broadway in New York City and like for maybe a hundred and thirty fifth and Broadway to maybe up into the 70s and Broadway you could literally just drive up to Broadway and they'd just be peddling narcotics on the street so it just wasn't as complicated as some people would think but then you always ran the risk of getting robbed because with that came a lot of you know robberies if you didn't know the right person but it wasn't really that difficult to get drugs I mean what what made it what made you different from another person is if you got you met the right individual who had who got drugs at a certain price because then that allowed you to always beat out everybody else's price right that was like a ZZZ claim to fame he had the plug right that was giddy and that's gonna be the case in any instance okay did you ever have that that one plug that was just supply massive weight yeah we did okay and what country is guy come from he's a Columbia Columbia right okay this has anything to do with Pablo Escobar I mean I wouldn't directly know that like you know you know but you would have to assume that I mean if you know your history or anything about narcotics at some point the majority of drugs came from one cartel ultimately you know once it got to the States whatever they never asked you to fly to Colombia to meet you know who the plug reported to not a cheaper price or no I never got to that level no I think I'm my my relationship with with the person that I was dealing with was a very intimate personal relationship meaning when you start making a certain kind of money and you're getting consignment then they sort of know where you live you saw know where they live so the relationship gets real personal real intimate because you're any given time you'll someone millions of dollars you know so okay yeah but no it was never nothing like that like if you look at your whole drug career what was the most number of kilos you bought at one time well probably 50 but the the methodology that I use for myself more specifically was I never wanted to have more drugs than I could pay for you know there's this this cliche for people who get the talking that you know something can go wrong and the more evolved I became in the business you you had to always be mindful of taking a loss because they would give you whatever you want it but you're responsible for that yeah you know and act in that situation get it can get ugly because what can happen is you can go to pick up a shipment turn a corner and run into the police and there it is around to the jack boys whoever you know so at some point as I evolved I would rather go three times a week and get 50 then get 200 at one time and run the risk of okay so that that that that was my mentality so a 50 kilos what kind of wholesale price are you getting probably fifteen when they was selling for twenty one twenty two so I would like immediately walk out the door I'll put five six points on something okay so that's 750 thousand dollars of product right you know walking out of the door have you ever gotten the whole package robbed like you know never never okay what were to happen if you came back to your plug and said the police got all 50 kilo sorry I'm with the relationship that I had I just would have worked it off but I always pay for at least half of whatever I took okay and then as soon as I went to the street as soon as I got the first half I would make sure that they were good so I didn't you know that's just how I worked that was principal like that have you ever seen anyone basically [ __ ] up a huge package like that we'd like the Colombians and unable to pay that back no I can't say anybody that no I think I think everybody you know television purports it to be a certain kinda way but everybody thinks about that like you know for me when I moved to certain kind away was a production you know I would make sure that people was in certain places and they would call and say the closest cleared and you know you can move now and you can move there you know so it was it was a it was a production when when I copped okay well here you are teenager early 20s coming from poverty and suddenly you have millions of dollars in cash right flowing through you right can't put in the bank right can't pay taxes on it right so you have to spend it yeah but III I had I had quite a number of businesses so I did figure out how to write legitimize what I was doing well the first thing you start buying his cars that's what every kid does I guess you're like six cars at any given time yeah and that was pretty common so it just wasn't a me thing that was pretty common yeah and you know in the neighborhood all the other various D boys would compete with each other about who had the hottest cars and especially in Harlem especially in Harlem and at one point you pay seventy thousand for a custom Benz shipped from Germany yes and that car just caused nothing but problems nothing but problems this place I went to jail the first thing was it was a hybrid so cross between a 190 and 300 so the first thing is you never saw it so you know at some point I think police have become you know used to seeing PM's and Mercedes or you know that kind of thing and then it and then it was read so that didn't help you know but I would get pulled over all the time in the car you know and it's one particular day I got pulled over and I guess the police just didn't like my tone you know my disposition because again I'm a 21 year old kid I got more money than I know what to do with I'm arrogant I'm cocky you know the money is inflated my ego and you know we we just didn't care about blue and whites like we talked to them like you know with little regard with no fear you know because they just you know it was it's just so different now I mean then than it was now but in any event I end up being locked up you know and the car was the car was legitimate you know it wasn't someone else's name though yeah it's definitely the project so yeah with this a car that's the equivalent about a hundred fifty thousand today right but the thing is they didn't know that right but you know and when these stories at oh what was was not stated for clarity and and and and for some understanding is the streets were full of young guys just riding around and luxury cars making money so I again it you know to do it today you just a gem jackass but your kid and you look around and everybody's around you sort of doing these kind of things it didn't feel it didn't feel that normal right I guess at one point you saw the car the rayful Edmonds I attempted to because I had been in DC yeah that didn't work out well no well right I did and I shipped the car all the way down there and and because he was supposed to purchase the car because this is the second time the car got took him dinner got took in in DC yeah when I went to attempt to sell it to him and the person literally drove it out of the storage unit because I shipped it down in DC to put it in a storage for him to come look at it and I when I spoke to the my guy on the phone and he was in the process of taking it to him to look at it he got arrested and the car got taken again I think he finally sold the car for four kilos there to some limit to Dominicans to just like get rid of it I had to go I'm done well New Year's Eve 1987 I guess you had a good year that year so you and your brother jumped in a Jeep well actually my cousin your cousin sorry jumped in a Jeep and explain what you did getting me kids again you know it's wintertime and said it New Year's II took the top off the car as a Jeep you took the top off the car we just wrote to Harlem just store money you know store money just thousands of dollars yeah just throwing money yeah you know that that's part of the goodwill too like when you're getting money you you know and and you know you're in love with your community and maybe for all the wrong reasons but you just always want to you know you want to give back because you knew what it you know what what difference those few dollars may have made for somebody because just you got to think I'm probably in a game two or three years at this time and to three years before it in honey dollars could could could brighten my day so when you see the reaction from that you know any boost your ego and in the psychic selling narcotics as a teenager and maybe even as a grown man it's an it's an energy that you can't even you can't even describe yeah but you know the dichotomy of it is you're you're throwing money into the community and helping people out and at the same time you're killing the community you do causing addicts and cause you don't baby but you but you know I don't know what the justification was for us at the time because again you're talking about young adults and you're just seeing the difference that it's making in your life for your family and you and then I think at some point you might say if I don't do if somebody's gonna do it you know so you justify it you make it make sense yeah well you start opening legitimate businesses yeah you open a sneaker store well that that came out of the fact that uh the sneaker culture was as big thin as it is now and everyone every like you will go to our houses and we would have two or three how to pair sneakers and out in our closet and so for me I said to myself I got thirty friends and we all making money if I didn't sell nothing to nobody but them I'm gonna have a successful business that's what my thinking was it didn't turn out like that that was my thinking well the store was broken into at one point early on yeah cash register was right I think people in the community figured we was just it wasn't because again what I was doing at the time I was doing it was unprecedent you know I was a young guy who was starting businesses so they didn't have anything to proceed what I was doing so I think with what they assumed was this was just a front to stash out drugs and money but there were no drugs no it was a legitimate business we opened a clothing store I didn't you opened a restaurant you had two laundromats I did and did you sponsor the first record tournament well the guy Greg Marius was a friend of mine and the stuff the tournament was uh it you know it was a years in but back then he just wasn't managing the money right like you know you had the paper refs and different things like that so whatever the entry fee was it didn't cover the cost of the tournament to its duration so we were friends so he would come by and I would give him money and times he before show for trophies and different things like that so I just helped him out well and back then you actually do Carlton I yeah I introduced a coke and I from a guy from Brooklyn another well-known drug figure in underworld he uh he knew I was into businesses and he know at a clothing store and this is when coke and I was just starting I mean he was actually making samples at the time so yeah I didn't I didn't I didn't only meet him I was trying to go into business with him right I actually spoke to him this morning oh did you know buddy yeah he's a friend of mine yeah well he basically said that I you guys talked about investing right but it never happened I think the Ross Geller's deal started coming in at that time and that's the fact you know an established company the cross colors he didn't say this I mean if you look back on it's probably a better investment partner than yeah I think so I'm notorious drug dealer yeah I agree ah at 21 years old you bought a $400,000 house right and not only did you buy the house but you added a pool in a basketball court again tobacco I did then later on you bought a $700,000 house with NBA players next door to you and and the such it wanted the one of the uh it's in Bergen County isn't one of the most one of the most affluent neighborhood still is presently yeah how are you laundering all this money well I had several businesses is that this other businesses the laundromats which is a cash business right and and and in the clothing store and all of it is I I mean my mother which we sort of skipped over she worked in a bank yeah well I'm gonna talk about so I just wanted to say that uh I had understood how business worked you know pretty early on so the businesses was all legitimate and it was making legitimate income so she my mother actually establish credit for me early on so everything was actually you know legitimate businesses that I was able to show a return on my investments well you had a crew of about a hundred people or so affiliated with you at one point yeah and these guys were all getting busted at various times and you'd be the one that has to come up with their bales right and then they would usually skip no I I would suggest it like I wouldn't like if they didn't want to go back the money wasn't even was you know it regards of money your freedom is priceless so if you know they got convicted and they allowed us to have it and a pill barn to pay I would pay that on something don't go back so they were just going to right yeah they were going away and you literally lost millions of dollars and bail money in bail money millions of dollars absolutely that was just part of the cost of doing business yeah I love I love my guys along with success on this level you start to build up a culture of people who were robbing the drug dealers yep they go hand in hand yeah there's a kid named safar yeah who just was 14 at the time right you had just met him and he got robbed like right second day I met him not 24-hour was that 2425 was that they met him and this was like on one of the box that you've controlled right so you actually end up getting into a shootout mostly that situation yeah we did was that the first shootout you were in um it probably was yeah it probably was okay and you didn't get shot no he got shot he got shot and I guess the guy who robbed him right got shot but that was just the tip of the iceberg did I was pretty early on that was probably like a 86 maybe 87 right because then entire crews started to build up they didn't want to deal drugs but wanted to rob drug dealers right I guess there are there are white guys that are going around dressed as cops right so what would happen in those situations when Harlan specifically anybody who knows anything about Harlan and in more specifically New York City Harlan's where everyone goes and all five boroughs come to like hang out because that's when he called him money making my Hatton so it was a full display when you went to Harlem like you could just walk up and down and you could feel the money like especially during that time it was just money everywhere and like you said there was guys who eventually no different and we developed crews there was there was there's there's always a anti to anything I left for right up and down a go a stop people making money people taking money so yeah these individuals figured out which wasn't was ingenious when you think about it because it's probably was someone from the neighborhood that that probably did some time knew some white guys that fit to fit the bill you know and what they were doing was they would pull you over and I marked cars you know and pretend badges around here next the whole thing and pretend to be police officers and a lot of times they would handcuff to you and put you in the back of the car once they literally kidnap to do you know you they will force you to make a phone call and you know tell somebody hey you know I'm kidnapped bring X amount of money and in most instances people complied because you know who you know who do you who do you go tell like you're a drug dealer so this is sort of like part of cause right because and in the previous you know timeframe the the Italian mafia was running that so you knew that if he robbed one of these guys you were running you were robbing in the wrists you were robbing the Mafia it's a find there is real repercussions because you're robbing a whole organization it's a fact not just a crew of one or two or five people right so there was a level of fear right but then once you guys took over no longer had to deal with the Italian mob there wasn't that level of kind of fear and respect with the robbers well there was always a respect you know but they are certain people who are so excited when it comes to just money because what happens when you have money you have power you know but it you're right as far as the description between the one concept versus the other yeah right well then I mean surprisingly enough the robbery crews actually had their own names they did there was the young guns they were there was a lynch mob well that was a drug organization that that was a component of something that they did give an opportunity prisoners oh yeah there's preachers crew right and there there would be robbing killing and extorting drug dealers right and at one point someone started to turn on each other I don't know that to be sober well I mean in your book there was uh I guess the young guns had had robbed somebody right and they hired the lynch mob to basically set him up and kill him when I was that was a situation where it happened it was an individual that definitely got robbed and one of the drug dealers was hitting another organization that he the person who was basically getting extorted and robbed reached out to them and said I have a problem and the person who who they was hitting in that organization said you know we could take care of it for you right right so they basically I guess had a meeting with three members of the young guns right you know then there was a Clarence preacher Heatley right aka the black hand of death right actually what they called him I think that might have came from the press I mean we didn't call him that we just know him as preacher well he pled guilty to 13 murders he did I mean not only did he kill people but he would torture them right and they just dismembered the bodies I guess he could kidnap Bobby Brown at one point yeah I mean I thought that out after the fact yeah mm-hmm and and I guess he was actually linked to the the kidnapping of rich Porter's younger brother which you know I want to talk about in a little bit good so you kind of had these serial killers basically on the street I guess yeah if you look at it and then you define what a serial yeah you could define us such yeah so you guys had to protect yourselves absolutely and it turn into you described as an arms race right well you literally have stockpiles of guns and body armor and so you would be basically leaving the house you'd put on your vest strap your gun in prepare for war knowing that every day you leave the house might be the last day as ignorant as that sound that was very true you know looking back on your question what was I thinking about but that was reality you got dressed and you're just like you know you didn't know if he was coming home was there ever a point we used to look like I got let's just say a million dollars in cash that I could put aside move to another part of the country or to a different country take my family with me and just start some legitimate businesses somewhere else start over I'll never go to prison I'm good um you know um I think throughout it all the guys around me some of them didn't we didn't all share in the same sort of like mindset to some degree you know some did some didn't but I do remember at a very low point in my life that that was my thinking but I also remember a lot of people hadn't sort of planned for a rainy day and they depended on me to continue doing what I was doing and I felt as though I would have probably been selfish then I would have been turning my back on them and it was really a bond in a brotherhood between me and my guys you know I mean like it's like one for all and all for one and that's what it felt like to me yeah so it just didn't seem like an opportunity to presented myself to where I could have just left and they would have been good well what 20-year old in your own crew a war started between a guy named Jason and t-money well that wasn't that wasn't that wasn't that they wasn't a part of my crew you know was he okay was there was just some of the guys that I came up hustling with in Harlem okay yeah but there was a but you knew that these were your friends yeah anyone my friends and he started to kill each other yeah they had at one point within six months like 12 people got killed over that war it went back and forth yeah could you have tried to step in and done anything about that or was it just beyond you at that point you know um it was just a domino effect once once one person lost a life somebody felt the need to retaliate and like you say before before you knew it you know at least 12 people I loved their lives so at what point did you meet rich Porter early in an 86 85 he went to jail around that time so when when when we first started out at Harlem it felt like it was almost like two crews me and most of my guys are from the Bronx and a lot of those guys were from Manhattan you know lived in Manhattan with the school in Manhattan most most of us was from the Bronx lived in the Bronx raised in the Bronx but the Bronx and Manhattan is literally a bridge 155th several bridges that take you from out of the Bronx turn into mad so um when we first ventured down into Harlem actually partnered up with someone who's from Harlem which was read as I stated earlier and as my reputation grew I started bringing my guys down from the Bronx to who I grew up with so it was like the guys who was from the younger guys who was from Harlem who was getting money and didn't it was sort of like us okay so you guys knew each other and you were friendly with each other yes time was casual acquaintances you know we would see each other car washes and events basketball games that kind of thing just to kind of put it in perspective and this is not like a pissing contest or anything you know this rich rich is gone at this point yeah who was who do you think was the bigger entity money-wise and who was making more money was it your a crew was a rich poor and well before before it was actually rich it was a Z yeah before it was actually rich but actually you know I miss peaking rich was getting money actually before you zebras get away yeah but rich had caught a case and during that time and this just goes to show you how fast the crack ever took off so little lake from 85 to 86 while he was away things just mushroomed and when he came back home you know he quickly got up to speed and got back into the game but initially AZ was the matriarch of of that situation right because well AZ had to connect right he was bringing all the tribes in right so well at the height of a C's operation in your operation who do you think had the bigger one I'm not being able to salute I mean we we quickly caught up to them and surpassed I mean AZ situation that happened to him happened in 87 okay we was just kidding going you know so he was in and out really okay so you guys kept going after he was I didn't get hold in 94 okay god I see what you're saying right you guys had more time tax right actually grow but you and rich actually became friends at one point we did and you were actually together when he got the phone call about his little brother getting kidnapped why wasn't think he beat me okay right cuz I had I had a I had had a situation that happened to me a year prior to what happened to him what happened to his little brother with your mother right my mother so and we had become friends because this is like 89 90 now so this is four or five years later and at some point in him and I had became really tight over the years and when a situation happened with his little brother he beat me and I remember it I mean you know certain tragic things happen in life you just remember what you were doing that they damage to what you ate and what you were wearing but this specific specific day I was downtown shopping for one of my stores and I was in the fashion district shopping and I got a 9-1-1 call on my beeper so anyone you know present-day kids don't probably know the beep is but back then of people was a way of communicating and somebody would need to leave a number and you would return the call but anytime someone left the phone number that she was calling with a 9-1-1 it was understood that it was an emergency so i remember sitting in one of the showrooms and I received the call and it was a nine one one call and I immediately got up and left the call him and he told me he need to talk to me so I shot uptown and I met him in the block he lived on 32nd Street and we met in a block of 131st Street between 7th and 8th and he lived on a hundred and thirty second and seventh so he walked over and we met you know midway in a block and he started explaining to me what what he understood had happened right because ultimately what happened was that his own uncle right along with preacher right had kidnapped his 12 year old brother I mean we all know that presently because presently the information coming out but didn't know we didn't know and they wanted how much a million or something yeah that's that's what it was stated to that bear and then the show they were serious they actually cut off his little brother sitting there today XM and I you know he explained to me the very next day right they cut off his little brothers no no Darnell's finger and Senate M just to show them but didn't send it to him but they left it in a McDonald's on Broadway in 125th Street yeah I called his house and said there's something to go look and he sent somebody over there and that's what they came back with how much of a mess was rich during this time I mean um oddly enough I mean he of course you know but he was dealing with it and and and some of the conversations that we were having was okay well this is real and we need to figure out at this point because this happened so fast I mean if from one day to the next day so there was discussions of well how do you impair ransom to somebody who just did what they did how do you trust whomever yeah you know so there was a lot of logistics that you had to make heads or tails out it you know so there was discussions about you know maybe we can put a bunch of money mixed up with singles and and whatever you know but again I don't think it was so much as it was about the money as it was how do you how you how do you do this like you know like it wasn't just a conversation with him speaking to his little brother they had already cut his little brother's fingers a finger off yeah you know so it so you had to understand like again and we talked and I'm 22 and he's maybe 21 22 at the time so you know present day in 20 20 people reflect on what they would do how they would do it next time you were in a room with a 22 year old have a conversation with them and then then try to in turn imagine negotiating the return of an individual that's been abducted and kidnapped did the FBI ever get involved in this they did get involved shortly after the finger was brought to the house because his sister again was even younger than him which is Pat you know Pat his sister and she sort of just lost it you know and and and ran out the house and the law had got involved after that okay but his brother was never returned they actually ended up killing him they did they dump the body somewhere in City Island City Island is a part of the Bronx oh okay actually not far from where rich actually ended up okay how did rich react to his brother getting killed um I don't think words could describe it I but he wasn't he wasn't an emotional wreck like he wasn't he was he was he was dealing with what you know he was trying to get his brother back you know even after that he was still trying to get his brother back like this didn't end when the police got involved the police actually picked him up and any interview to me and he didn't he didn't he wouldn't say anything to him oh he wasn't cooperating no he didn't cooperate because he had his home things going on absolutely no but even still it just was where we were at at the time and I you know was doing ultimately they caught the guys who did it um eventually after yeah years later years later yeah when you find out it was the uncle how did you feel um do you know his Uncle Bob yeah I knew who I know but um again what a piece of [ __ ] of a human being man absolutely I I can't I I don't think there's words to describe someone they'll kidnap their own nephew cut their finger off and kill him for some money like they always they say it's always a person closest to you yeah well at one point rich Porter gets killed how long after the whole incent with his brother does he may be a mom oh that quick yeah about a month this thing happened to Danielle sometime in December and then rich end up getting killed sometime in January of the following year okay so you and Apple Raschi close the whole time right okay but you weren't actually doing drug deals with Alpo no he was doing rich he was dealing rich so you kind of like left those I mean it's just what it was they always from Harlem like I said they all came up with just except okay but after uh after rich died a Polestar to approach you right for work right did you have any idea that alcohol was responsible for killing rich Porter you know it was it was it was some rumors about it but because about because of what I believe their relationship to have been it just didn't it just didn't make sense to me because of what I thought the relationship represented right so so Alpo actually approached you for a $400,000 drug deal well we didn't we did multiple deals he was doing deals of that caliber um that's funny with you well you're with me right right Lisa it's funny yeah it's funny to me because the way the weighted me and Richenda partnered up it was because rich was complaining about his relationships with certain individuals that he was doing business with because rich was doing consignment with a with people and and casaya means is self-explanatory so he would he what he said to me this is how we end up partnering up during the time is because he was telling me how he would do consignment with people and it was they would owe him money so when it was time for him to make a move he would have to chase people for his money a certain kind of way so it always held him up a certain kind of house and it's almost like if he didn't have work to give him then he had to run behind him so he's really never fully paid so somebody who just used a round number 200,000 and you and turn go get them another ten keys at 200,000 you had never really you know you've never really de'cine your money to actually do something with it so he was saying his times when his connect might have not been on and he's chasing them for his money right right this there was a guy in Harlem named fritz the consignment King had like 20 or 30 million on consignment at any given time um this room with the banana and I can I could believe it to be true okay well Alpo ended up pleading guilty to killing 14 people right that's just who he admitted to right you actually compare him to Ted Bundy and again this is this is this is my understanding as I evolved and understood because he's a real likable guy like and I'm saying like you know like and a lot of people who know our PO we know him from Harlem the person that that he turned out to be is not the person that I was friends with you know I'm saying I understand how the game goes you know to give and take with that but the person who ultimately became when he went to DC was not the guy that was the beloved guy in Harlem right because then he got mixed up with Wayne Perry over there and yeah I mean he basically would just kill people he owed money to well ultimately that's what it became and that and that made that that that may have happened with instance of rich he may have liked something might have happened and triggered a thought in his mind like you know hey this is a lot easier you know yeah I got to pay him back if he's not there to pick it up alright and rich actually pays you the night he got killed you did so you were brought in for questioning and everything else well no the feds came to my store they first a tech they beat me and I I went to return the call and it was the police on the other line and I hung up the phone and maybe a day or two after that day and I'm just walking into my store yeah in regards to you know our communication you had a friend that was on the run for murder right and he had a 19 year old girlfriend right he described what happened with her well he was more than he was more than a friend he's like my partner he was somebody who had a lot of respect for held in a certain regard we were partners his name was a crusader that's that's what they known in the street he was the names Crusader so he was a very good friend of mine like you know we all was in DC together and he had a girlfriend right that uh again she was a teenager you know as I understood as I understand the story she was in the Bronx I'm visiting one of her friends and and she was abducted by three guys with guns right she's coming out of her apartment she was growing eyes behind basically kidnapped her right and they took her to the roof and they threatened to kill her and you know those kind of things and toward it for her to take them somewhere to get some money you know they wanted money or ever you know ultimately she ended up bringing them to my mother's home house right along with another girl as well you know she was all worth the girl who she was going to visit yeah yeah ended up at my mother's house which coincidentally mum I mean and I've been trying to make sense of this from that from then to now with where this happened that was up in the Bronx on Andrews Avenue and where my mother lives was maybe 10 minutes from from there to there so that may have had something to do with her thinking you know I'm not quite sure but when I tried to make it make sense again I'm a grown man now so when I reflect back on it again his here's a girl's 18 19 years old if that at the time and you got three guys abduct and they got guns so I guess she panicked in it because she assumed it's your mother there's probably a bunch of your money at your mom's house you know that I'm unclear as to what that conversation was between her and them when I had to think about it I just assumed that you know she knew that maybe she like she probably thought about time you hoping that in the course of going from point A to point B something would happen and this would get disrupted okay so these three men show up at your mother's house for us two young girls right your mother doesn't have any money no have any drugs nothing she works at the bank she the bank managers she's a regular at 9:00 to 5:00 that's where she is work her out the way you know how old was she or 50s or 60s she wasn't that Oh 40s yeah she's a young mother my mother had me when she was 19 okay this young mother 40-something years old these three men burst in her house right and she can't give him anything right they ended up shooting everyone in the house they did your mother dies how long with the girl - uh was being visited yeah and one girl actually survives right my my guys girl oh the actual girl that they kidnapped she survives right I guess you at the movie theater when you get a 9 on one page I am at the movie telmex in Secaucus just like with some of my guys and a few girls we hanging out actually bumped into rich that same night as well cuz he lived out in Secaucus and we all liked the movie theater when I get again another 9-1-1 page from a number I didn't recognize so when I answered the phone when I caught it when I called the number back there's a girl on the phone who I don't even know she is but she's trying to tell me something happen so my first inkling was that is some [ __ ] that somebody was trying to you know like get me somewhere to potentially do something to me but I was frantically calling the house and nobody was answering you know doing that kind of thing so I immediately jumped into my Carter - shoot - we're just you know that's and it had occurred in the Bronx he show up and there's police every tape everywhere right and then they tell you your mother's been killed yep and the only one one person survived that that she was taken to the hospital what went through your mind at that point I was I couldn't make heads or tails of it because my mother didn't hang out with this girl you know she may have knew who she was because my mother would come to the store and do the books around the store so she would she was acquainted with my friends yeah and and people associated with them so but they didn't hang out there was no reason like that I could identify relate to why she was at my house or my mother's house so I was just trying to make hesitant that which you know I just couldn't because it just didn't make any sense well the girl survives right so she gets taken in the hospital where she got shot in the head or so right she got shot in the head right but she actually makes makes it through so the police question her right what did she tell I'm not sure exactly what she told him I know she told us uh-huh what did she tell you pretty much who where it happened at and she didn't she didn't know who the individual was but all she had to do was tell us the block that it happened on and before the Sun came up we sort of knew what happened did she ever explain to you why she took these men to your mother's house you ask her cuz I'm sure that's one of your questions well initially when it happened I couldn't bring myself to have a conversation with her but her guy is my guy meaning this is somebody who would you know die for me and I would die for him so this just wasn't a casual acquaintance like you know like you know I had so much love and respect for him and vice versa that you know it's just like any any information that was funneled do with a king through him and it even made it difficult for him and I to converse because of you know that's your friend but this is your mother you can't really compare the two right and I'm not trying to compare you know stayed in to you is like me and this person went the water you ever meaning like I've had my life in his hand he's had my you know my life in his hands but not this girl though but not right but and that was his woman so you know I see the Complexo me trying to go around him to her as you know I mean it this was a yeah it was it was a very complicated complex situation was she cooperating with the police I have to assume she did because eventually they end up catching the individual couple years later so the three guys that did it were caught well to her one of the one of the guys got killed in the process to the time that they were in saw that she didn't share too many tears over there you know why would I write good rinse pretty much when you found out about the guys who killed your mother don't you know them at all never met him never met him never saw didn't know what they look like what are they sends to I don't know some some ridiculous mother today still in prison now yeah they're in prison now did that bring any level of closure to you or did you want to get to him yourself we look for them every day I mean this is just me being Frank you know for me to say anything of it and that wouldn't be true I spent every waking moment trying to track him down you know I mean that that's that's one of those things out of did and and got convicted and did the time and and lives with myself thinking a lot of people were right so it wasn't it wasn't nothing to be ashamed of but no it's not yeah the thing is and they knew how strong we were so kidnapping these three women and not getting anything other than whatever jury that she may have had on in her car they knew what the violation was and I have to believe that that's the reason why you take an abduction a home invasion and turning into almost a triple homicide because they was concerned about the consequences of what they had done because I guess they thought if they killed everyone they didn't know how wait no way for us to know who did it right they wouldn't a bit then one girl survived and that I didn't he went on the run yeah they was actually apprehended in like Boston and Chicago or something like that okay they couldn't stayed in New York City so did it bring any closure knowing that they're still in prison now look I live with that to this day because I feel it's because of me that it happened because of my lifestyle you know so no it doesn't it doesn't give me any satisfaction and even if I had to kill them by my hands it wouldn't gave me any satisfaction cuz my mother was still going nuns don't bring her back yeah sorry for your loss man yeah thank you so the feds was onto you I did a three-year investigation yes on your organization right they said that you were the biggest drug dealer in Harlem sis Nicky Barnes that's the way the newspaper read yes right and they also claimed that you made 40 million dollars in drug sales right you got picked up yeah this is in late 94 94 22 other people that picked up as well right myself and 21 other people 21 other side so between a total of 22 you were charged with CC E which is a continuing criminal enterprise yes which is the Quillen a kingpin charge or the palace of the I know size drug charge you can get rights it's a natural life sentence so along with you being charged as a kingpin there's 21 other people and that includes your kids mothers there's two of them I guess was one what right okay and your aunts yeah and a bunch of your friends and no my cousins just this is just yeah my media family for the most part anybody who was related associated to me in a personal way day but they was arrested right mmm so now everyone is now being charged as locked up and right they're trying to get everyone to turn against each other in fact out of all those people nobody actually told nobody what kind of time were they threatening everyone else with what a drug conspiracy a 846 carries a mandatory minimum of 10 years at the very least and then all dependent on what they was able to prove it would be anywhere from 10 years or 10 years of life okay and you were facing life several charges that yeah well if I got convicted of any one of them I was looking at life you're 27 years old at the time turn in 28 in five days and their offer you a 25 year plea deal at some point yeah so they're like you can get out of 52 you're right but you weren't trying to hear that I I couldn't you know I I couldn't I couldn't relate today well you're in jail right and you actually described in your book as a as a sense of relief you felt like you were getting off the hamster wheel early on you I was I was probably able to hear myself think for the first time like in years right you've got a bunch of money right but the feds started seizing your bank accounts freeze and all masses they put a lien on your house you got to lose your house at one point at one point they seized your father's condo you know you start taking all your cars and his cars and visitors luhan's cars if the business is and everything right now you have your your kids mother you have your aunts you have your cousins all these people are tied in to your situation well honestly they worried what the feds were trying to obtain was right right well what they were doing was was really holding him hostage hoping because let me back up a little bit I saw early on when they were investigating me you know early on I started being followed and I noticed something was going on in mind you I had been I had a run at that point for 70 years so it wasn't odd to me when I looked up and they were on me you know a certain kind of help so literally the first day I saw I saw myself being followed close shot I saw this stop you know damn it in that very instant you know trying to figure out what was going on so in the process of that I went and contacted my accountant and tried to say hey I don't know where I am with anything but I want to get brought up to speed because something's going on and it's not really you know whatever so you knew that the feds were a baby so they lost again and not only did I see him day one I had a lot of resources and I had received phone calls from certain people that was a law enforcement telling me gave me a heads-up either one leave the country at that point go to some well there's no extradition well I didn't know what was going on and and and and what made me not even think like that right out the gate was that this thing went on for three years and I'm talking what literally three years of we walk in a straight line so the more I walk the straight line and the more that I continue to see them and started making me think maybe I had a tax problem and I figured I could deal with that you know you know so I didn't overly panic because just went on and on at first when you first see it you you really like disturbed by it because you think tomorrow they gonna kick in your door then this went on and on and on for several years yes sir just became normal right just became normal right you know and I mentioned the whole thing with the family because I I just interviewed this guy Anthony cheese Gonzalez he was the manager for the clips oh yeah I know it is yeah right and I you know we just did all his first interview ever gonna start running this weekend okay and he was picked up for running a twenty million dollar drug operation you know when it happened I was actually in Virginia aha yeah okay yeah I got some friends down there 2010 yeah I got some friends down there and they had also arrested his mother right they arrested his kid's mother the arrested his family members and so forth and in order to protect his family he signed an immunity deal right - essentially cooperate exchange for them letting this whole family go that's what he's hoping that happened with me yeah and during the course of the you know the interview we talked about this me he admitted to what he did he said that he did cooperate and he said that you know he really looks at some of the you know his Co prisoners he's like you know a lot of them he feels were just stronger than him because they were able to not cooperate and have their mother locked up for 20 years and kind of hold on to this coat of theirs while their mother is rotting in prison and he was like he just couldn't do that himself he had to break down and break his own codes in order to save his family when I went to prison I had I had an easy in prison because once you get to to these different prisons and I thought that no camp I started at some really tough spots you got to show your paperwork so when I goes to my paperwork and it explains about such a such and such and they look at it like in prison they say they looked at when you're seen and said okay you got a Mexican guy who told on you and you told on just other Mexican guy cuz he wants on the Mexican guy but then you did that but so your founder wouldn't go to prison oh man you know but then when you put that in your mind on what you what will you do they're looking at it like man that that's a tough pill now you got people who gonna say oh man cuz I you know I had people say this in prison but you shouldn't had your family involved in it but like I told them my family wasn't involved in it that's what the feds do so you know I mean but you got to put yourself in that situation so you can't say what you're gonna do and tell you can put in that situation but you weren't actually willing to do that well well this is this is a distinction between his situation of mine my family didn't sell narcotics with me that's the first thing but this fella we didn't really sell narcotics right well you know there was a gray area where like his mother when he was out of town his mother would drop off the money and you know some of those things Mickey's mother was cashing you know cashier's checks were technically drug money so you know if there's one dollar connected to a drug drug operation they can get you in a Rico well well the same thing applies with me but I they just weren't a part of my organization I sort of kept him over there now they benefit obviously from from from my profits yeah I took care of him I mean I'm sure they had an idea as to what I was doing but the guys that I did all these crazy things with when when I got arrested they weren't in the bullpen with me so for me that indicated that something ain't right here they don't they don't know what they shouldn't know so it gave me the understanding that this isn't this isn't what it is like they're using my family to pretty much do what you stated yeah and and because I have faith in and annoying like you know again a lot of this was my bravado a lot it was my ignorance because the other day all that [ __ ] that you're thinking about really doesn't matter yeah but you know is if the feds want to paint the story a certain type of way and if the jury wants you know with how the feds painted with their 97 percent conviction rate your whole family could have gone to prison that could have been the end of the end me but for me you know in most Americans when we think about the feds we think they are the the barometer of truth right is what you want to believe this is this is what they disseminate to to the public right so for me I needed to know what this looks like when you go to a jury and like where the pictures where the phone calls where we're in a wiretap where with the drug transactions these people were didn't do any of this so I just couldn't wrap my hands around the concept of and and again that was the card that they played I just I just didn't go for it so so let me ask you a question you know if you could answer honestly absolutely if ultimately it was a hundred percent sure that if you do not cooperate with them your kids mothers your kids mother your aunts your cousins are all going to prison for substantial periods of time would you still not cooperate this is not in me blood okay you you would let them go to prison right along with it it's not it's not you know what it wouldn't be that I would let them go to prison along with me but if there was a part of the crimes that I committed and it was wrong then I guess at this point we would all have to pay for the consequences of our actions like but since they were innocent like I didn't feel that I would've had a conversation with my mom say hey we all did wrong we broke the law right this is what come with it yeah this is part of the other side of that corn but that just wasn't the case okay I understand but telling is just not not something that I've ever okay so you had a friend named Charles Allen Brown right from Mount Vernon right who was a hustling with you right at some point at some point you gave him cars well for clarity this guy Charles Island Brown actually used to work with AZ and well he was part of that other group that I described earlier got but he went to jail and then when he went to jail he had a good name at the time so when he came back home the way the drug gang works is like if somebody come from coming from jail and you saw it in a position to help them you do you know that sort of like the part of the the the ideals of what it is you put some eye on that's what it's called breakout you know you try to get them back on their feet because they went to jail without telling them right then they had a good name so when he comes home that's what you mean by a good name right they kept their mouth shut right so he got out you helped him out right oh yes you said you saved his life a couple times I did over what there wasn't there was an instance there was an instance where he came to me and uh he wanted like he said he had a cell he had a customer that wanted about three keys of crack this is not like this is not long after they had enacted that legislation in like 87 where crack was 100 keys to one key of powder of cocaine yeah and so when he came to me and he said that he had someone that wanted about three keys to crack a single ohad to me so he wanted already cracked up right as anyone ever but I've never even heard of that well they were people but it's very rare most people wanted to buy and do whatever they wanted right like cocaine enjoyed themselves right whatever whatever right but it just seemed odd to me but for him they was willing to overpay where's the four kilo was twenty thousand he was willing to pay twenty seven thousand in New York and it's just like this doesn't sound right to me it just doesn't make you know no sense to me but anyway for him he was looking at making anywhere from fifteen thousand twenty one thousand all depend on what he sold it for and like literally handing from you know from from getting it to handing it off to some and that's easy lick so uh but I just told me didn't make sense to me so I said well since it's your customer then tell them leave somebody sitting with them take the money you come get it you take it back to them and you're doing like that but no one's gonna turn just coke to crack and then do it and then if they don't want it what do you do with this like you know that kind of thing but anyway I convinced him that it wasn't something about it didn't make sense he in turn went and found somebody else that he attempted to do it what they didn't maybe wasn't even do it but the person went and of trying to do it with them ended up getting busted so I remember him coming back to me saying like thinking me like you know you know you know I'm glad you know list an attorney and so on so forth so that was one instance there was another instance where he was dealing with somebody that uh was dealing with one of these notorious crews and they they took it as a slight because the this person that was he was dealing with they were making money off of this individual and when he cut into that individual they no long was making money off that individual so they took that person they found out who he was and knew that he was down with me and I got a phone call that was like you know your guy got yeah yeah out of respect for you keV I'm calling you but your guy has a problem because we're eating off it it's just person and he's got in between that and he's taking a business somewhere else and we're not we're not taking kind of that and I and I showed them that I would have a conversation with him and get him out the middle of that you know and I did that the other individual ultimately again got killed so 22 of you are now tied into this whole continuing criminal enterprise right charge everyone gets arrested except for Charles Alan brown right who goes on the run right and that lasts for a good six months right then he gets caught sorry and what happens as soon as they put the handcuffs on he gets to talking to the traffic agents damn you know that's what they was equivalent to just local officers in Raleigh North Carolina not the feds just the people who he had a warrant they caught him in and and and I'm not making this up for the sake of trying to humiliate the person this is a fact and my discovery it states that as soon as he got caught local law enforcement he was he was on talking with them so somebody broke ranks he did one guy one guy had he not talked do you think you could have walked away absolutely because today I got arrested they found guns in every every every house that I lived and I can live with that that that's not what they I don't have a felony so anybody who knows anything about the feds they don't arrest you if you don't have a felony there's no charge if you get caught with a gun and your felon is called a felon in possession but because I wasn't a felony correct because up to this point you weren't really being arrested you were not a convicted drug dealer right and and and and and for more clarity when we talk about my family what also linked to how I proceeded was the fact that when he went for arraignment they all got released immediately like the prosecutor didn't have an argument to keep them in prison so that was an indicator to me too that this case wasn't what it was so that helped me make my decision as well how did you feel when when Charles when you find out Charles - cooperating when they caught him they brought him back to New York City and this is the first time I I would see him since he had been on a run and we all in the bullpen and I swear to you there was nothing about him that gave me he told you no I knew all the things that I had done to him let me dump done for him when all of my code friends were saying he gonna tell he gonna tell and and and I was probably the only one that had faith in that he wouldn't because I knew all the things that I had different and I was hoping that I did enough that would make him feel you know that I need to stand with y'all because I took up and to this point no one told and and it's just was part of the conversation to him and I had you know it wasn't till we left the bullpen and I got back to the building and I was talking to the marshals and the people and receiving and discharge because I had I hadn't knew my way around the building at this point and I earned favors so I was trying to get him to come to my floor you know to get them to sign him to my floor so you know I could bring him up to speed as to where we were with the case so when we left the bullpen I told him listen I'm gonna get you brought to my floor so when I'm up on my when I'm up when I'm in my housing unit about hour goes by and he doesn't come up you know I go to the to the correction officer an accident you know could you do me a favor and see what's going on with this guy when he came back with information I knew he was bad okay so you get off with this 25-year plea deal right and you decide to fight it right now when you have plea deals before trial the feds have all this paperwork but but they can basically black out all the names and acted and acted right so you don't know who said this right you don't know no won't either name well you have an idea an idea but you don't know the velcro because there's a black line that's going through certain parts of that of that document and since most people take plea deals you never get to know you never get to know and people could basically tell on you and you can under wiser and you they walk away with no repercussions right and they get to whatever lessons they're telling case of exactly most people don't take it to trial that's a fact ninety seven percent conviction rate right exactly yeah why would you go up against that yeah I remember I interviewed Chris Gotti and herb Gotti for that matter and we just talked about how when they beat the feds it was like the most it's like a unicorn situation where I was like yo like no one expected this that's a fact but they beat the fence it cost a million dollars they lost a record label but they won it but that never happens right that's true so you decide to go to trial right and at that point they actually give you the real document yeah as a discovery there's the process goes on a discovery is given to you so that the stuff that's blacked out yeah you start seeing it in the paperwork you said that Alpo was actually cooperating in your case right he also said that a Z was cooperating in your case well the easy thing is a little different because I don't want I don't understand that when I see his name there you know output was already arrested and it was understood what he was doing by this time you know he was arrested in like 1991 and by the time I went to jail it was understood what was going on with him so me seeing that didn't didn't didn't surprise me but me seeing his AZ's name and it didn't make sense to me because he wasn't arrested he was a free man right now you did the interview of flex right and you mentioned the AZ thing right a Z who I know I've interviewed before okay I've never had a conversation with him about this okay but he publicly spoke out and he said that what you said was a lie he claimed he never knew you and he said if what you said was true he wanted to give rocks to his children and his children stone him to death okay what do you say to that I've already proved that he knows me I mean he knows he knows me he let me go ahead and flat a Z wrote a book that precedes all of this right that's the movie paid in full was based off that book no no no he paid in full came first he made a book he has a book called gameover gameover came first did what that was a title but the book is called that okay but the book came years later the book came into 2000 okay but in any event this individual states he doesn't know me there's two chapters devoted to me in the book the somebody don't know okay so you know let him explain that to you next time y'all speak cuz again you don't know me why are you writing about me in your book okay so you have your first trial right well if a Z and Alpo are in the paperwork why why aren't they forced to take the stand okay his explanation for that because I just wanna you know preface this for people who don't know and that's fine now and I'm used to doing yeah if you make a statement against somebody right I mean we didn't have to about somebody and it goes to trial right you are the defendant can legally put that person on the stand you know Ross examine no that's not true no that's not true you look at people can make statements without actually having to yes yes court it's the discovery you know you get it in your when you first get to arrest it you get a complaint right and even with the discovery the government gets to choose who they who they call as a witness you can call them to counter that but it's not in my benefit to do any of that you as a defendant that's why you call the defendant you're paying defense meaning well wouldn't you want to call someone to the stand that's making a statement about you that could potentially send you to life in prison no no not in that instance because what happened is the reason why do get to be more specific and this is my belief because of like you said our point the time had been convicted of like 13 14 murders yeah him coming in my trial were me sitting there with my wife my dad's to that who low-level drug dealers that the best him getting understand saying all these things about me is almost like the devil calling a saint Elijah it's like he hurts the government case and I had I been in there for 20 murders as well didn't the government's theory would be it takes a bad guy to catch a bad guy you know but well but is it you know you could put him on the stand and say he bought drugs on me well you could say ladies and gentlemen of the jury here's a guy who's facing a bunch of murders he's gonna say whatever it takes to lower to lower his largest and to walk away so he's making up all this stuff about my client right now and it's believable in that instance yeah so that's why they didn't do it that would have helped you know that no that wouldn't help me because the fact that they didn't bring them it's like the less the jury hear about you the better okay I see what you're saying so I I don't need to bring in somebody to seek to argue whether or not I sold drugs with them okay the less is best for me okay same thing with AC then you know well you didn't want easy as a witness no hazy situation is sort of contour is different because to this day that situations are still doesn't make sense to me because him being in my discovery my early discovery like you know everything's dated so I'm getting stuff I get in jail it's almost 95 in November of 94 I'm up from 95 by my early discovery during the investigation I'm seeing dates of 90 to 91 this is when I'm still in the street this is when he's in the street but his name is appearing on a documentation at the header you know and filing evidence and things that happen to the course of an investigation and then as my my prosecution evolves then his name is removed from it it initially didn't it didn't make it didn't make sense it didn't it wasn't a big deal to me because I know I never did know business with him so I wasn't only concerned about that so you never saw drugs with a Z never know so that's why I didn't really make heads or tails of it yeah well you go to trial right and how long was the first trial about four and a half months four and a half months right well you're facing life in prison you want to write I'm going over everything we've gone over everything absolutely after four and a half months everyone rest their case right and the jury goes to deliberate right how long did they deliberate for it two weeks two weeks so for two weeks they argued with each other right and they came back as a hung jury the judge finally declared it a hung jury you have to know that the note he went in and gave the instruction again and that told him to go back and try to work it out and they just couldn't they couldn't come to the decision so basically these twelve people cannot come to unanimous decision of guilty or LC right so you go back to jail again right another left chips I mean just the other right you leave court go back to jail what is is going through your head as they finish the trial and you don't did you feel good about the first trial or no oh I felt great about it because this is pretty much what I knew it to be yeah and it gave me confidence because I'm like well the government put on they presented their case to jurors and the jurors obviously saw some part of whatever we as the offender put on the defense they did they couldn't come to terms with a conclusion right but you're sitting here for two weeks going if they come back oh no that was the LT I had my life so life my life so life in prison as a 27 year old right I'm going away forever I'll never get to really touch another woman I'll never get to spend money like I'm now in a cage with a bunch of men for the rest of my life that's a fact but they came back with a hung jury they do it so the feds decided to be trying to retry you right so now you're in trial number two but before I get to trial number two they they come to conclusions with the other 21 people most got time served so I'm gonna got a year two at the moment I think the most someone got was every four years so here comes trial number two right how long did that trial last mmm about six weeks so was faster this time yeah they have 21 other people did they add this okay right and the Fed saw what not to do this time around and so forth right so then they conclude this trial how long was the deliberation about a week about a week this time about a week with the same outcome same out hung jury hung jury you've now been in jail for two years a little over two years you spent $200,000 on lawyers it's been way more than that way one time she spent I don't know if I had to say it uh well this is what happened as well you know they confiscated a bunch of my money yeah and there's emotions called my aunt Monsanto Santos who was actually a guy from Harlem and what what the the case law basically says is that any monies that was taken in me taken from me I could use toward legal defense and you know so ya know it's my money and I'm rather spend it on fighting for my so anyway I filed that motion and they had to really look for some parts of my money these fees you're basically spending your drug money on your lawyer i spinning i spending my drug money on my free time you're free because of my freed exactly right so now trial number two is a hung jury once again right were you expecting were you expecting to win this time around or absolutely expected to then once again well did a lot of things happen between my first trial one of their main witnesses one of their main witnesses basically got on the stand and said everything that the government said about me wasn't true and that was a key witness for the government so in the second trial they didn't even bring him back of course as they considered him a hostile witness but did you have brought him back it wouldn't been favorable to me again because what my lawyers told me in regards to that you never want to put some I understand that you don't know what they don't actually say right because I don't worry Murray right well no just my lawyer was a lawyer named Anthony Rico you know Richmond earlier my first try hopes a lot of my family members but not in my second try okay so once again hung jury right you're not fully trusting your lawyer when your lawyer is telling you advisory Hill and everything else like that because after essentially losing the second trial right the feds now take their 25 year plea deal and lower to ten years well no the judge advises the prosecutor along with my attorney that we need to try to come to some sort of like I guess a deal that would work and it for the better sense of you know all as I play right and during both trials Charles took the stand yes both Charles how did it feel to see him on the stand telling you book telling on you you know you know that that it really bothered me it definitely really bothered me because we actually had an exchange in the bullpen him and I because one day they was bringing him down to trial and he was bringing us down and this is my first trial he was bringing us down we bumped into each other I mean we all had cups so you know it wasn't a whole lot you know whatever but in any event they end up putting this a separate bullpens but we just hear one another talk so you know I was talking to him I was like I don't know like how are you doing what you're doing to me like you know all I did for you your family you know like like you know and then what bothered me most more so than him telling on me is the fact that he sat then told on women that he knew had another doing nothing like you know we you in the street you see somebody and he presents a certain kind of how and you buy that you know you see this person who's standing tall and talking [ __ ] you know and so you sort of you buy into that and then you know you're sitting there at the defense table and then you see somebody understand not only telling on me but then point fingers and making them things about people that wasn't so I never saw that in and I never saw it in a person let alone him what was his answer to you when you asked him he said cab you know I got I'm already I got life parole and they you know and now I'm looking at life over here and it was just I guess for him it's just about self-preservation like you know him or me that's it that's what it came to okay so the judge brings you into his quarters well yeah and he basically tells you you should take this ten-year plea deal um what happened was my lawyer was trying to convince me giving me great legal advice I mean in hindsight obviously I could make heads or tails of it but at the time he was telling me that uh you know he was explaining to me pretty much how Kevin I've been doing this for a very long time and you only got one time to lose like the government has resources that's limited do you think the feds would have kept retrying you over and over again you know it's ironic because um at the time when this was when my case was going on Snoop Dogg had just got acquitted on his history I think he had a hung jury too and then but they didn't retry him or one person got convicted and then I think he got acquitted I don't remember him but I just remember the OJ Simpson thing was going on yeah so I'm thinking like the stars and the moon is lining up like it's my time equally just to be acquitted cuz you got to figure now I've had two hung juries in the first case the main witness isn't there we pretty much know what their cases and how do you present it right you know no more surprises there's no more surprises yeah so I felt pretty confident and again mind you I had I had never done this much time in my life I don't know it just was my first felony prior to this I had probably been arrested on some nonsense and was in and out of jail but just a long time I had been in jail and I wanted to go to [ __ ] home you know I wanted to go home you know so and ten years sound like a long time for somebody who just didn't do time yeah and it is a long time but in the federal system it's a blessing guys I tell you I take ten years all day long and go lay down and again but you know this is what I had come to understand but at the time you tell me ten years I you know I was inpatient I ain't want to do ten minutes but she ultimately took the ten years yeah ultimately did you know and and and and what made me take the ten years is because like you said there was but but there was there was a little mistrust with me in my law at this point although he had fought so adamantly up until that point and even even they after like you know again I was blessed to have hired him as an attorney but what he was just basically explaining to me was what the system was like you just don't understand like you have no idea what this truly represents and and and the victory in this and I just didn't really want to hear him so the judge I think at his request he acts could we have a conference and once the judge told you you what he said fine Shalit II was because it just said to me you know mr. child's you know you've been dignified you you know you seem to be an intelligent guy but what you need to understand that the charge is that you're facing no matter how much I mean like you I think you don't deserve life in prison your charge is call for that and I'm gonna have no choice but to give you life yeah so basically the government can keep getting is wrong but the one time that they get it right my hands are no be tired it's all over for you right well I guess before accepting your tenure deal your close friend my bestest up my top best friend had taken a plea deal of 17 years right well they offered him the 17 years because during the course of the investigation they had they had did a controlled by with him he also had a prior felony so with a prior felony in the feds they got something called a 851 where they filed that with the government and what it does is whatever time you get it doubles that so he and he got caught a gun which was a consecutive five years so automatically he knew he was looking at the conspiracy carries 10 years you double that that's 20 he got caught with a gun that's 25 years like without any kind of fighting so for him as long as he was to me he was like you know he wasn't gonna tell on me and he he so he took the 17 and a half years and he said keV I can't I have no wins and 17b is 25 and and that's what he that's what he did right but when you accepted your 10 years you said you would only accept it if they lowered his right to 10 years as well right I couldn't live with myself knowing what he had done for me because if I was issues I don't know if I could have been the man that he was you know I mean when he when he did that you know like it sold it told me apart because you know Here I am fighting and without if I was to go home I wanted him to go home cuz imagine if I got acquitted you know then he's sitting in jail doing 17 to have years that [ __ ] would've just told me apart knowing that he got in front of the situation for me because he could have told and went home right out the gate yeah I mean it kind of reminds me the bobby schmurder case right where Bobby took more time in order for rowdy rebel to get less time yeah it's true yeah so it does happen sometimes no it does man there's a matter of fact I had him name and my son that I had after him because you know my son wouldn't be here you know yeah if it wasn't for him so I named my son after him that Sunday night end up having and then Charles who took the stand against you who was facing 25 years that time served walked away you got time so he walked away how they make you feel you know I you know I'm my dignity is intact my more was my principles the ideals that I live by so you know and like I said you know he has to live with with whatever choice he may not have to live with miles well you accept your plea deal right you go on start your 10 year bid right you have a bunch of assets that you leave with other people right business is right so forth and I hear the story over and over again with people interview all that kind of goes away yeah but you know you know what and I don't know if the people that have said what they said to use it wasn't it wasn't done malicious you know like I was here and I was overseeing things so when you leave a person who's not a business person in charge of a business the business typically fails because it was never a business person in the first place it's not like they go and Swan and spend your money and then have a disregard that's that wasn't what it wasn't my own sense okay well for example I talked a little D Freeway Ricky about this right and they left money in people's names their property in people's names and when they got out finally the money was spent the property was in someone else's name and they were trying to give it back time you have to trust somebody you got a people hold money you got a people have it your properties and their names and what Georgia the guy I have a conversation with that did a bunch of you years do what I thought was years family and friends they gonna respect that money money cuz I feel like you don't need it don't like they do and they mind they say oh you needed some money to go the Commons there and get on the phone I don't think I only cared so much about that to be quite honest cuz cuz every everything everything that I had or had was with my family and like I said no one did ever my family ever done anything malicious to me like you know they have to live life goes on that that's not something that a harbor I didn't I didn't have that kind of filler well Freeway Ricky his own plug set him up right and he got convicted to life in prison I'm aware I would he guessed the prison and he's angry I was angry too you know here's this guy I made a millions of dollars a family and he was angry he was angry at the guy right and he said a couple years later after sitting down in prison he finally realized that snitching is a part of the drug game way I look at it is first of all I made the mistake of getting in the drug business that was my first mistake my next mistake was I went back into the drug business that I say I quit yeah so what he did is he only did what people do in the drug business they tale they set you up and for somebody to go into the drug business and not understand that which I was in the drug business and dinner [Music] but I came to grips with it okay to think that you're going to sell drugs and nobody's going to tell on you you're just deceiving yourself cuz ultimately everyone who gets in this game will get told on and it was really his own fault of getting into the drug game as opposed to someone's else's fault for doing something that usually happens anyways right did you feel the same way I feel that I convinced myself that I treated people so well that that they wouldn't tell on me and and I just took care of people like in a manner in which I did that I just really believe nobody was ever gonna tell on me you know and I'm not gonna act like my theory was 100% flawed because I am talking to you now and 22 people got arrested and one person told I mean some people consider that great percentages yeah but it doesn't matter cuz all it takes is one person it do but they see what I'm saying but even with that one person his story just wasn't enough to get a conviction because I would be looking at a life sentence I mean you wouldn't be having this conversation so that ten years I did and that is not an insignificant amount of time no it's not but um I think you're you're how old right now I'm in my fifties or right a fifth of your life was spent in a cage right you can't just gloss that over and so I only got ten years let me say this do you see what I'm saying I mean I'm not one I want to help you understand who I am I've been doing Donald Eva for twenty years because of my own ideals and principles and I've been supporting guys who were there when I was there and still there you know a lot of things that happen in my life when I was selling narcotics you know and I and I and I and I rassled with this because I did I experienced some amazing things that maybe had I not sold drugs I wouldn't have you know and I don't and I don't know when I have to look at it like it's almost if you asked somebody how much money would I have to give you to do some time and there are people who will say hey because you know what I I work for con Edison and I make $50,000 a year and in ten years I better be equivalent to five hundred thousand but after taxes is this and if you tell that same person I'll give you ten million dollars if you do ten years there are people who crashed lies that they say you know what i'ma spin this ten years which is not guaranteed you're gonna survive because we don't control our lifespan but there are some people who can rationalize that and say you know what the trade-offs worth it but you didn't have money waiting for you you have no this isn't me this is me looking back in hindsight I see what you're saying though you know but that got to fall out for how many years ten twelve ten twelve and then for every day you balled out you got to spend a day in prison pretty much pretty much to me it's not worth it but no I this is some people it may be you know I'm going to jail it isn't it honestly there's no amount of money that's worth going to jail exactly but because of my position and that I've taken and and and I have to make it make sense to me but you know what and I'm gonna tell you something else you know sometimes certain things need to happen for you in life for you to get to where you ultimately supposed to be and and that just was what it was like you know it was written this is what I had to do and I look back on it now and and me becoming a person that I became I probably had to go through that to get to where I am now so I'm not trying to harbor a delivery regrets you know obviously my regrets are as a as a mature middle-aged man I know the devastation that I caused in my community and for the last 20 years I've been doing everything I can with Don David uh talking about prison reform and recidivism and you know even with the stories that I do on these guys that these kids look up to they all end with them saying this isn't what you want to do you know yeah I mean I honestly used on Deva as a template right for what I do right you know along with American Gangster I did one of the episodes of there but it's like these types of stories they never end well and that's what we try to push at the end I so fast like there's never a happy ending at the end that's never yeah and I got out and I had a hundred million dollars already for me and you know no big deal like people come out there are their families die while they're in prison they don't get to go to the funerals their friends die through there women move on and that's true have other relationships and other children and they miss raising their children which is what you missed absolutely you you had how many kids when you went in for four kids right and you missed a decade of their lives I did a very important part of their life that's a fact that's a fact you have to live with that I do yeah you know and that's why I spent every day since I've been home you know trying to make their lives and the mistakes I made make sense yeah you know and you launched Don diva from prison from prison right yeah and I guess one of the things about Don divas you guys don't do stories on snitches no we don't yeah I don't have that same guideline with well well you you what you was never told on seeso might have told on you then you would I would feel a little different I find if I only interviewed people there's one sorry I get it uh most of my interviews would be in prison you know phone interviews over which I've done but listen I understand you know like I started out telling you that life is about balance and so I get it it's just for me yeah you know I'm a civilian yeah and I get it yeah you know why I'm at this point as well but nevertheless I understand what it is and it's just too many people that I left behind that I have loved for that I couldn't come out and do anything over there so I just you know it's just it's you know again when these things were done Blatt we were kids you know we with kids looking for a way out I mean this isn't something I would get into as a Midway man you say I'm selling my cottage it makes no sense I mean I'm you know well middle age or same age in 2020 it's just not gonna work well that's not even the point of my most I'm not saying that at the time my set of circumstances were what they were right and I did what I thought I needed to do to take care of myself and then at some point my family and then it just mushroomed and got beyond what yeah what but what I'm saying is what you did in the 80s is not possible it's not really no technology cameras cell phones that can triangulate where you were and kids have opportunities now that we didn't have dia how did he feel to walk out of that walk out of that prison after a decade you know I didn't spend a lot of time in prison like you know I was fortunate like you said to start Dundee maybe five or six years in so I spent a lot of time vicariously living through other people's experiences so I my body was dead but my mind wasn't you know I was always thinking of like what am I gonna do because I've never worked in my life like I had a summer youth job as a kid for a few months and Here I am coming out of jail in my 30s like what am I gonna do wait did you get out in 2004 so from 1994 to 2004 officially I was done yeah you know I got half in a half years but officially in 2004 right okay you ate a half years be right ever say yeah what had changed the most in the world once you step back into it um technology for me yeah I mean missile our phones weren't around right I mean her net wasn't this big I remember having two things I went to the motor vehicle cuz I had to you know get my identification and get all my face in order and I remember having to take my driver's test on the computer and I just remember how difficult that was because when I had went away we had stuff accounting and little little things like that but I think I had more trouble taking a test then you know cuz of course I know how to drive but you know technology the advancement of technology yeah I remember talking a little D he was a crack king of Oakland yeah we did a story you just started on we did it yeah and when I asked him what the difference was he said well he said when he got out he'd be walking around the streets and people be on their cell phones they'd bump into each other and just not acknowledge the other person just came out walking he said in prison if you bump into each other and you don't acknowledge that person that might any last thing you ever do that's a fact I was in another world man like I was the look the look that was on me was like a person that you just let out of a cave I mean that's how long I had been gone like when I seen all these peoples on the iPhone with a hairnet on texting and bumping into each other man it freaked me out man because because it was so these people with movement so fast all right and then in prison you got to be kind man you got to say excuse me if you bump into somebody man you you know you got to say scuse me you got a you got a you know because it's a respect thing so when I see you know you people bumping each other with the air now I don't we're not a freak and I'm like man what this is crazy you know I remember talking to Shyheim about this and he said he said yeah I mean cutting in line you know and you're you know in line to get food cuz it's fine you have to handle that right then and there a dirty look everything you're living in a situation where violence and death could break off at any minute no I'm just the slightest level of disrespect it's wall skipping me on a line is war good at a fight I'm standing on line going somewhere and here you come I could be at the commissary line getting my bag here you come yo what the [ __ ] you don't see me sitting here that quick that quick you know or just I I you know I'm saying someone looking at you you cross honest like you'll [ __ ] you looking at will [ __ ] you looking at instant them do is it a lot more time that I did as well let's show him to six years oh did it yeah well I don't know what his experience was but in an instance a little D I know but I just oh yeah little D D like thirty right so in his answers I can identify but for myself like I said I lived outside a person like I just I was there so you never get caught up in things or the politics ER I was trying to get back home like meaning my my focus and my attention was on reading advancing myself you know just figured out what I'm gonna do with my life because again I had a date and it was around the corner I had already did almost three years and just fighting oh yes seven more that five technically all five regulated all right so okay so I see what you're saying is not right so you know I just wasn't focused on the politics and bureaucracy of all that nonsense I mean they claim that you made 40 million dollars in drug sales right to do that and walk away with eight and a half years it's not a bad deal no and I think the number was very conservative so I agree oh you think it was more than 40 million do the math when when I told you what's happening early on what do you think the number was I don't know you know the more money you make the more dumbshit you found and do you know I'm saying you just like you said you can only spend it so many different ways like so what was the most ridiculous thing that you bought I just think I just ran around with an entourage all the time like you know like any time I did something it was 10 of something like you know like it's just what it was I want on vacation 10 people with it you're paying for everybody everybody and not not the guy that was getting money with me but just my extended family you don't yeah all-star games fights like you know so it's just you know so again that's why when I reflect back on it I mean for a lot of people don't you interview a lot of people and that's why they call it the golden era like there's some people who just can't get beyond that because they're they're better lies is behind him because they've never experienced anything like it and to support that even with these rappers you just see how to recreate that if somebody music and some of their fashion because it was just talked about it was just it was intoxicating made it just was you know right because all the rappers wanted to be the drug dealers that's he wanted to look like him they wanted to dress like especially during that time cuz we was young guy see the guys that I came up looking at yeah looking at was older guys that but we were young you know yeah well Kevin uh he had a hell of a life yeah and you know I was still long life ahead of you absolute it seems like you're fully aware of everything that happened seems like you took responsibility absolutely everything that happened and you know even even down to your mother as horrific and tragic as that situation is you have to put some of that blame on the lifestyle I put it all in that you you know and that's a hard pill to swallow I'm living with it yeah presently you know you could say yes it was these other guys and it's whatever but it's like had you been just a regular guy working at you yes yes and that mother would be still working at the bank and it's a fact yeah that's a fact that's tough it absolutely is yeah I haven't got over it yeah and I doubt if I ever will your father's still alive yes how does your father accept that part you know I'm sure the burden on that's not my father my brother as well you know yeah you know although like you know if that's the one thing that I just can't make heads or tails up you know the rest of it I can live with is part of what happens but that that that's just the one thing that you know I just I just can't make sense of yeah okay I appreciate you coming in and I think it's really dope how you took that life that you lived and turn that into Don diva able to pivot you know I think that's the the mark of a true hustler yeah you know it's one thing to be good at something and keep doing it and eventually fades out and then you're broke at the end and you know but to be able to be great at something and then have that come to an end and then pivot to something related and be great at that as well because Don D but I think is a legendary publication I think it really it was I mean I guess it's one of the most read publications in prison oh absolutely yeah you know and you know to take your experiences and your values and create a media company around it which is something I've done as well right wouldn't you do it yeah yeah I think it's is dope and it's not easy to do it's a fact trust me it is not easy to do and I think you had a very authentic voice right and what it is that you do it's very unique you know it's different than a flat TV or an American gangster or whatever else and you know I wish the best for you your kids I'm sure they're definitely your father your aunts cousins you know and you're just as a silver lining you know you became a drug dealer but your brother actually went to Columbia University yes they did which is one of the Ivy League one of the top universities the country the world entry in the world right yeah I went to UC Berkeley myself and having a degree like that I'm very proud of what will help you will help him his entire life it absolutely has doesn't will exactly what does he do for a living he's actually he's in private industry now but he was actually a basketball coach for st. John's and nice a lot of prestigious schools but nice you know and I'm sure you doing what you had to do you were able to help him out financially so he didn't have to go in as a fact and then end up going to prison and losing all that opportunity so you could at least look at that situation oh I have and that's just that was a driving force like everything I did was for a reason you know okay I appreciate you coming in appreciate you having me oh yeah thanks

Channel: djvlad

Views: 1,972,138

Keywords: VladTV, DJ Vlad, Interview, Hip-Hop, Rap, News, Gossip, Rumors, Drama, Kevin Chiles

Id: P2nTu6ddkoE

Length: 123min 46sec (7426 seconds)

Published: Wed Mar 18 2020