[SPEAKER_03]: You worked in a prison library, I didn't know that.
[SPEAKER_02]: Yeah, I worked as a clerk in the library.
[SPEAKER_02]: I basically put everybody on payroll in that library.
[SPEAKER_02]: I had all the law clerks why I get on Tito's case, doing research.
[SPEAKER_03]: And how does you put them on payroll?
[SPEAKER_03]: What do you want?
[SPEAKER_02]: You pan with coffee, you know?
[UNKNOWN]: You pan with coffee, you know?
[SPEAKER_03]: the TJ Dominguez story episode nine.
[SPEAKER_03]: The prison librarian.
[SPEAKER_03]: What's about to happen in this episode will at the very least surprise you and at the very most it'll blow your mind.
[SPEAKER_03]: I mean
[SPEAKER_03]: It's 5 a.m. now in Los Angeles and I'm getting in my car and I'm driving to Las Vegas.
[SPEAKER_03]: It's a three hour and 45-minute drive at this time of the morning.
[SPEAKER_03]: I'm meeting up with a prison librarian.
[SPEAKER_03]: Well, a retired prison librarian.
[SPEAKER_03]: An incredible woman who forms an unusually close bond with TJ when he's serving time behind bars in Florida.
[SPEAKER_03]: We meet at the bungalow coffee company, off East Charleston Boulevard, just a stone's throw from the famous Las Vegas strip.
[SPEAKER_03]: Mmm, good coffee.
[SPEAKER_01]: Good coffee.
[SPEAKER_03]: It's 9 a.m. on a Monday, so the place is pretty crowded and noisy, but I got my podcasting headphones on and the audio sounds good, so I start the interview.
[SPEAKER_03]: First let me have you introduce yourself.
[SPEAKER_00]: My name is Leonel Lovel.
[SPEAKER_00]: I used to be employed at the correctional facility in Putnam County, Florida.
[SPEAKER_03]: And that's where the prison was.
[SPEAKER_03]: That TJ was serving his time.
[SPEAKER_00]: Yes.
[SPEAKER_03]: How would you describe that prison?
[SPEAKER_00]: What is a prison like that look like feel like?
[SPEAKER_00]: Well, this is a minimum to medium security prison, so everybody was getting out at some point.
[SPEAKER_03]: Okay, so this is a prison where people go who are getting out soon.
[SPEAKER_00]: Well, they might still have 15 years, but they're still getting out at some point.
[SPEAKER_00]: So they have life in prison.
[SPEAKER_03]: Right.
[SPEAKER_03]: Ah, does everyone have a cell?
[SPEAKER_00]: They're confined to.
[SPEAKER_00]: There are cells.
[SPEAKER_00]: And then there are dorms that they have.
[SPEAKER_00]: The prisons in Florida are not air conditioned.
[SPEAKER_03]: Oh, that's hell.
[SPEAKER_00]: it yes.
[SPEAKER_03]: That is hell.
[SPEAKER_00]: And very little fan air movement.
[SPEAKER_00]: So it's a sweat box.
[SPEAKER_00]: It is.
[SPEAKER_00]: Wow.
[SPEAKER_00]: So they loved the library because it was air condition.
[SPEAKER_00]: The clerks that worked for me, Tito made such a huge influence on me.
[SPEAKER_03]: And what was he doing in the library primarily?
[SPEAKER_03]: What did he tell you he was up to?
[SPEAKER_03]: Like why did he go to the library?
[SPEAKER_00]: he worked in the library.
[SPEAKER_00]: Oh, that's his job.
[SPEAKER_00]: Yes.
[SPEAKER_00]: So eight hours a day, 40 hours a week.
[SPEAKER_00]: five days a week yeah so he had a desk right out in front of my office that watched the door the front door and we had a movement which is when certain times people could come to the library so they weren't just walking in and out all day long and he would something sure everybody signed into the library and if they had appointments for the law library sent them over there he basically kept an eye out
[SPEAKER_00]: me on everybody would let me know if something might be happening, but I have to tell you the library was always the biggest place for contraband.
[SPEAKER_00]: really what kind of contribute we talk it anything that they could put in the books they could hollow out books and yeah inmates get drugs the correctional officers bring a man what am I law clerks told me what he was getting and how much he was getting was every week cocaine and marijuana in prison in prison.
[SPEAKER_03]: and were they cutting books open to hide it in the books?
[SPEAKER_00]: I do not know how, but it was a correctional officers, and there are a lot of correctional officers or people that have worked in that system that have a lot more material things than their jobs allowed them.
[SPEAKER_03]: So in between the lines what you're saying is,
[SPEAKER_03]: the only way those inmates are getting drugs.
[SPEAKER_03]: Correct.
[SPEAKER_03]: No officers.
[SPEAKER_03]: Yes, somebody on the outside is paying that.
[SPEAKER_01]: Yes, connected to the inmates.
[SPEAKER_00]: Yes.
[SPEAKER_03]: Wow.
[SPEAKER_00]: I had because I'm a smoker in my very first day.
[SPEAKER_00]: I set my pack of cigarettes on the my desk.
[SPEAKER_00]: and the officer that was with me the first couple days he says oh you need to put those in your he says those go for $100 a pack.
[SPEAKER_03]: So you could sell it to an inmate for $100 and how would inmate get you that money from someone from the outside?
[SPEAKER_00]: There is some kind of chain of
[SPEAKER_00]: I wasn't privy to that.
[SPEAKER_03]: But when you said some of the correction officers seem to have a lifestyle beyond what a previous, what did that look like?
[SPEAKER_03]: What did you notice?
[SPEAKER_00]: The officer that was with me the first couple of days showed me his account online and his was well over 100,000.
[SPEAKER_00]: Wow.
[SPEAKER_00]: And he was maybe 25.
[SPEAKER_00]: So where does that money come from?
[SPEAKER_03]: Like he's getting paid to give stuff to humans.
[SPEAKER_03]: Yes.
[SPEAKER_00]: Wow.
[SPEAKER_00]: I would have, I would have to assume.
[SPEAKER_00]: Right.
[SPEAKER_00]: Why would he show me that?
[SPEAKER_00]: And then tell me that cigarettes are $100.
[SPEAKER_00]: You know, a pack or, and I never gave the inmates anything, like the contraband.
[SPEAKER_00]: Right.
[SPEAKER_00]: Because they don't need to get in trouble.
[SPEAKER_00]: They're already, you know, you don't need to add to it.
[SPEAKER_03]: Yeah.
[SPEAKER_03]: Wow, you blew my mind, interesting.
[SPEAKER_03]: It's such a blatant hypocrisy, though.
[SPEAKER_03]: Like, here you have these people convicted of a crime.
[SPEAKER_03]: And yet, these prison guards who were supposed to be in charge are committing crimes with the, you know, charging inmates to provide them with drugs and whatever.
[SPEAKER_00]: So then that inmate cuts down what he gets in and sells it to the other inmates.
[SPEAKER_03]: Yeah.
[SPEAKER_00]: There's a lot of money to be made on all sides in prison.
[SPEAKER_03]: Wow, I hadn't thought of that, and so you just brought that up.
[SPEAKER_03]: Interesting.
[SPEAKER_03]: This revelation about all the drug dealing, about all the prison guards making fortunes catering to this illicit demand, shocks me.
[SPEAKER_03]: So I asked TJ about it.
[SPEAKER_02]: There's a lot of activity in us, date prison, and also in a federal prison.
[SPEAKER_02]: It's a small world after all.
[SPEAKER_02]: So everything that goes on out here goes on in there.
[SPEAKER_02]: So you have probably more drug per capita than you have in the outside world.
[SPEAKER_03]: And that's what blew my mind.
[SPEAKER_03]: I didn't know.
[SPEAKER_03]: And it kind of upsets me on your behalf because it's just like you're in there for drugs and yet the prison guards are selling drugs and it's a well, it's an open secret.
[SPEAKER_03]: Like it's not a secret at all.
[SPEAKER_02]: Well, you know, I'm in a situation.
[SPEAKER_02]: I'm living in a bubble in a glass house.
[SPEAKER_02]: So I don't wanna take a lot of shots at the government.
[SPEAKER_02]: I don't fear the generals in the Pablo Escobars.
[SPEAKER_03]: I fear more the government, but did you witness people buying cocaine in prison?
[SPEAKER_02]: Come on, of course I did.
[SPEAKER_02]: People offered me that T1 to jump in and I want no part of it.
[SPEAKER_02]: I didn't go in there to get another charge.
[SPEAKER_03]: What I'm struggling to understand is, all these inmates are locked up, right?
[SPEAKER_03]: Their movement is restricted.
[SPEAKER_03]: So after the prison guard gets cocaine to one inmate, how the hell are they dealing it to each other?
[SPEAKER_02]: You have these dorms, dorm A, dorm B, dorm C. Now, they try to isolate everybody.
[SPEAKER_02]: There's only two places that everybody meets.
[SPEAKER_02]: The grounds and then exercise outside.
[SPEAKER_02]: And the library is now, how do you get the drug or how do you get the cigarettes or how do you get whatever you're gonna get from A to B?
[SPEAKER_02]: Well, there's different ways of moving that.
[SPEAKER_02]: You can move it with the trash people that go around pushing trash.
[SPEAKER_02]: So, you know, these are in compound smugglers.
[SPEAKER_02]: Let's call them, you know, in the trash bag that they're picking up from Dormay, and then they're gonna go to Dormby to pick up more trash.
[SPEAKER_02]: In there, somewhere, there will be something that's being transported and being moved.
[SPEAKER_02]: Now, these people, they're mules, and they're gonna get X amount of dollars for that.
[SPEAKER_02]: Now, the library, as I was saying before, when you're talking about all the legal drugs and so forth and so on,
[SPEAKER_02]: It's a place where A, B, C, and D, everybody goes at one time.
[SPEAKER_02]: So if I'm going to pass something to Jonathan, Jonathan, go to the library tomorrow 11, I'll be there 11 o'clock tomorrow, and I'm going to hand off this.
[SPEAKER_02]: I'm going to hand off that.
[SPEAKER_02]: It's a way of passing stuff around.
[SPEAKER_03]: And then Leonid told me they would carve it into books, hollow about books, or I might say to you, Jonathan,
[SPEAKER_02]: Well, I can't get there 11, so listen, I want to leave it in the Britannica and Saclopedia F. You know, in the middle of the book, there'll be, you know, certain drugs or whatever cigarettes.
[SPEAKER_03]: And what are you thinking as you're learning all of this on the inside?
[SPEAKER_02]: It's a joke to me.
[SPEAKER_03]: Right.
[SPEAKER_02]: It's a joke.
[SPEAKER_02]: It's in crazy.
[SPEAKER_02]: It's not my world.
[SPEAKER_02]: I don't want any part of it.
[SPEAKER_02]: I got more important things.
[SPEAKER_02]: You don't what they are.
[SPEAKER_02]: My freedom.
[SPEAKER_03]: Yeah.
[SPEAKER_02]: I didn't come here to get in trouble.
[SPEAKER_03]: But life in prison for TJ is fraught with constant threats everywhere he turns.
[SPEAKER_03]: He can never let his guard down, and all the lessons he's learned studying karate and navigating the violent world of cocaine smuggling of corrupt government officials and of all those murderous Colombians uniquely prepares TJ for life on the inside.
[SPEAKER_03]: When you're in prison and another inmate walks up to you, you have to be ready to act because things can go sideways quickly.
[SPEAKER_02]: This gentleman that was a black guy was really, really big.
[SPEAKER_02]: You know, and he corners me in a corner, and he says, Listen, man, you're going to have to start paying protection.
[SPEAKER_02]: They shake people down in these places.
[SPEAKER_03]: So this big guy who's twice your size comes over and says you need to start paying for protection.
[SPEAKER_03]: Yeah, against who against him.
[SPEAKER_03]: That's the implication, right?
[SPEAKER_02]: Well, he didn't say, you know, me and my boys, but he just said one word, you have to start paying protection.
[SPEAKER_02]: If you don't want something bad to happen, people get stabbed in their all the time.
[SPEAKER_02]: This is the way it is in there.
[SPEAKER_02]: It's an ugly world.
[SPEAKER_02]: You can't be weak and you can't show weakness.
[SPEAKER_02]: So I looked at the guy, I swear to you on a Bible, I said to the guy, listen, man, I didn't come here to be your friend.
[SPEAKER_02]: Pay protection.
[SPEAKER_02]: It may explain something to you.
[SPEAKER_02]: You will miss around with other people.
[SPEAKER_02]: I'm not the kind of guy that you're used to talking to.
[SPEAKER_02]: I don't scare.
[SPEAKER_02]: And I don't need anybody to protect me.
[SPEAKER_02]: It means playing something else to you.
[SPEAKER_02]: You got a family out there.
[SPEAKER_02]: You got kids.
[SPEAKER_02]: You got a mommy out there.
[SPEAKER_02]: I will hurt them from an ear.
[SPEAKER_02]: And then the day you get out, I'll have people in the parking lot waiting for you.
[SPEAKER_02]: They'll hurt you some more.
[SPEAKER_02]: You don't want to eff with me.
[SPEAKER_03]: I'm not here to be your buddy.
[SPEAKER_03]: As TJ is telling me this story, his face changes completely.
[SPEAKER_03]: Something comes over him, he's suddenly not the same person, his eyes glaze, his voice sounds different.
[SPEAKER_03]: For the first time since I've known TJ Dominguez, I am frightened.
[SPEAKER_03]: So I gotta say sitting here talking to you, even though I know you're not gonna hurt me.
[SPEAKER_03]: When you clicked into that mode, when you're talking to that guy, I call myself, you fucking did it.
[SPEAKER_02]: Like, I was scared.
[SPEAKER_01]: I'm like, oh my god, how do I get out of here?
[SPEAKER_02]: You do transform, what's the drink to that?
[SPEAKER_02]: You, you just bring it all up.
[SPEAKER_02]: I think you go back to Marshall Art.
[SPEAKER_03]: That's what you brought up a second ago, that scared me.
[SPEAKER_03]: I start thinking, wait a minute.
[SPEAKER_03]: Just feel it.
[SPEAKER_03]: I think crazy.
[SPEAKER_03]: You can feel it.
[SPEAKER_02]: No, no.
[SPEAKER_02]: Listen, when I used to go into that mode, everything would go slow down, slow motion.
[SPEAKER_02]: This is crazy.
[SPEAKER_02]: People won't believe it.
[SPEAKER_02]: And I don't want to say it because people can't relate to this kind of stuff.
[SPEAKER_02]: It turns everything turns into black and white.
[SPEAKER_02]: I see silhouettes.
[SPEAKER_02]: And I see things that happen before they happen.
[SPEAKER_02]: Everything starts moving really slow.
[SPEAKER_02]: And I transform, I become something else.
[SPEAKER_02]: And it drains me after an incident.
[SPEAKER_02]: I just fall, I have to sit down because he just takes everything out of me.
[SPEAKER_03]: But it works.
[SPEAKER_02]: It works every time.
[SPEAKER_02]: And listen, the bigger they are, you've heard that expression, the harder they fall, there's a lot of truth to that.
[SPEAKER_02]: You know why?
[SPEAKER_02]: It's the little guy that's gonna hurt you.
[SPEAKER_02]: He's unpredictable.
[SPEAKER_02]: It might not tell me that a long, long time ago.
[SPEAKER_02]: It's a big battle wolfful there, you know how to handle him.
[SPEAKER_02]: When I was a karate instructor, the hardest thing that I used to have to teach was self-control.
[SPEAKER_02]: I could teach anybody how to kick and how to punch him.
[SPEAKER_02]: I might take six months to sit here, but you can learn.
[SPEAKER_02]: But what I can't teach you is to control that anger.
[SPEAKER_02]: Don't get mad, don't take a swing at somebody and out of your anger and your emotion, you're closing your eyes and your the rage takes over.
[SPEAKER_02]: It ain't about rage, man, it's about survival.
[SPEAKER_02]: It's about actually making it happen.
[SPEAKER_02]: The other way you're going to do that is staining full control of the situation.
[SPEAKER_02]: Maybe that's one reason why I didn't read the drugs because I like to be in control of what I do.
[SPEAKER_02]: And I used to be able to break eight to inch concrete slabs with my knuckles.
[SPEAKER_02]: See how my knuckles are all in the form.
[SPEAKER_03]: You're all like, they're all too full.
[SPEAKER_03]: I mean, they kind of are, it looks like a horror movie.
[SPEAKER_02]: Yeah, yeah.
[SPEAKER_02]: When you're breaking eight splits, they call them two inch, two inch, two inch, two inch.
[SPEAKER_02]: If you break with power, they break from the top down.
[SPEAKER_02]: You hit it here, and then they go boom, boom, boom, boom.
[SPEAKER_02]: And they break.
[SPEAKER_02]: When you break with finesse, shockwave, and technique takes years to master this.
[SPEAKER_02]: They don't break from the top down.
[SPEAKER_02]: They break from the bottom up.
[SPEAKER_02]: The shockwave travels through the concrete.
[SPEAKER_02]: When it hits the end, it can't go any further, and it reverses, and it goes boom, boom, boom, and you might break the three in the bottom and not the one in the top.
[SPEAKER_03]: Ah, and that's pretty evidence, that's pretty fascinating.
[SPEAKER_03]: Yeah, pretty fascinating.
[SPEAKER_02]: It takes years to man.
[SPEAKER_02]: I used to punch a candle and try to suck the flame off by pulling it back.
[SPEAKER_03]: TJ spent stretches of time in a lot of different prisons and jails based on all of his indictments.
[SPEAKER_02]: When I saw that big and diamond, it was like 57 counts.
[SPEAKER_02]: Look like gone with the win book.
[SPEAKER_03]: How many states were you and died of that?
[SPEAKER_02]: I was indicted in Detroit, New York, Florida, Central District, Southern District.
[SPEAKER_02]: There were going to end up being Georgia.
[SPEAKER_02]: I got a pass on that and then in the Bahamas.
[SPEAKER_03]: And how many different prisons?
[SPEAKER_03]: Jail's, did you do time in it?
[SPEAKER_03]: It sounds like a lot.
[SPEAKER_02]: A lot, a lot, including two countries, which they flew me out of the United States.
[SPEAKER_02]: I got it, they ain't done it, they made it to Bahamas.
[SPEAKER_03]: And if you were in jail in the Bahamas.
[SPEAKER_02]: Yeah, yeah, they jailed the Bahamas.
[SPEAKER_02]: It's like, it's really ugly.
[SPEAKER_02]: You sleep on the country and you poop on a bucket that you fucking, you fucking, you know, bucket where they put a piece of plywood on top.
[SPEAKER_03]: Like to cover it.
[SPEAKER_03]: Yeah, that's how.
[SPEAKER_02]: Yeah, until.
[SPEAKER_02]: At one point, TJ spending time in a Michigan jail.
[SPEAKER_02]: It was only seven tons of cocaine.
[SPEAKER_02]: I think I got indicted for Inditroid, but it's federal.
[SPEAKER_02]: Had I been indicted, state, I would have been doing life.
[SPEAKER_02]: State would give me life for one kilo.
[SPEAKER_02]: So I finally arrived at the jail Inditroid.
[SPEAKER_02]: My wife is pregnant, right?
[SPEAKER_02]: Gonna have a boy.
[SPEAKER_02]: She's doing him moment.
[SPEAKER_02]: There's a guy that's on the phone.
[SPEAKER_02]: It's a guy who's on the phone for an hour.
[SPEAKER_02]: You can't be on the phone for an hour.
[SPEAKER_02]: We got a line here.
[SPEAKER_02]: and there's like 10-15 people waiting on the phone line.
[SPEAKER_02]: I'm waiting.
[SPEAKER_02]: I got a line behind me and this guy is abusing the phone privileges.
[SPEAKER_02]: So I say to the guy, hey man, you know, can you give us a break?
[SPEAKER_02]: They're getting ready to do a lot down.
[SPEAKER_02]: So in the next hour, the phones are going to be disconnected.
[SPEAKER_02]: We're going to have to be in the room and we're not going
[SPEAKER_02]: And the guy looks at me like cross sign.
[SPEAKER_02]: He says, Can't you see him on the phone?
[SPEAKER_02]: And I said, yeah, that's why I'm asking you, to please, you know, be fair.
[SPEAKER_02]: Let us get a shot at the phone.
[SPEAKER_02]: He answers me really nasty.
[SPEAKER_02]: And then I'm on the phone.
[SPEAKER_02]: So I turn around and I walk away and I get back online.
[SPEAKER_02]: So another 10 or 15 minutes of this and I'm looking at at the time and I know they're going to lock down I'm not going to be able to call my wife I've been on the road for a month or two he lose track of time I don't know what's going on I don't know my wife had a baby if she didn't have a baby I don't know none of this right and I'm starting to get a little annoyed with this abuse so I walk up to the guy and
[SPEAKER_02]: and I say to the guy, hey listen man, I try being really nice with you and understanding and I get this thing that you're on the phone.
[SPEAKER_02]: I said, but I need to get on the phone man.
[SPEAKER_02]: You need to hang up the phone.
[SPEAKER_02]: He looks at me quote, he says, you're wearing me here.
[SPEAKER_02]: I said no, I really don't care why you're in here.
[SPEAKER_00]: He's a real cool servant people.
[SPEAKER_00]: That's all I mean here.
[SPEAKER_02]: You know what I did?
[SPEAKER_02]: I swear to you or everything I stick with to me.
[SPEAKER_02]: grab the receiver off, snatch it off his hand, I say you're going to have to kill the eighth motherfucker.
[SPEAKER_03]: Oh my god.
[SPEAKER_02]: That's me.
[SPEAKER_02]: And then what did he do?
[SPEAKER_02]: Look at me and he says disain over and say no, it's over right now.
[SPEAKER_02]: I'm on the phone.
[SPEAKER_03]: The lesson is, if you're ever in a situation where your life's in jeopardy, you're threatened by an aggressor, do not do what they think you're going to do.
[SPEAKER_03]: Don't cover, don't beg.
[SPEAKER_03]: Do the opposite.
[SPEAKER_03]: Shake it up.
[SPEAKER_03]: Put it.
[SPEAKER_03]: Take them off kilter.
[SPEAKER_03]: When he told you, I killed seven people, he was expecting you.
[SPEAKER_03]: Oh, okay, I'm sorry.
[SPEAKER_02]: Oh, forgive me, I'm sorry.
[SPEAKER_02]: I clicked the phone off, snatched the phone receiver.
[SPEAKER_02]: It's going to hit him whether it's a seabro or the head of the receiver.
[SPEAKER_02]: You're a seabro.
[SPEAKER_03]: You're a seabro.
[SPEAKER_03]: Oh, absolutely.
[SPEAKER_02]: But the bully, I've been sitting there on line for like 30 minutes thinking what I'm going to do.
[SPEAKER_02]: This is it.
[SPEAKER_02]: I'm done.
[SPEAKER_02]: I'm not waiting another second.
[SPEAKER_02]: I'm going to take this phone.
[SPEAKER_02]: I'm going to get on the phone.
[SPEAKER_02]: I want to talk to my wife.
[SPEAKER_02]: And I mean, nobody on this earth is going to stop me.
[SPEAKER_03]: Years later, TJ spending time in that Putnam County, Florida State Prison.
[SPEAKER_02]: The state picks me up.
[SPEAKER_02]: They transform me over to a state facility which is unbelievable, you horrible.
[SPEAKER_01]: Mosquito is so big out there.
[SPEAKER_01]: You've got to put license plates on them.
[SPEAKER_02]: Yeah, they bite you twice.
[SPEAKER_02]: You're going to get a light headed and there's no joke.
[SPEAKER_03]: That's what you meant, Leanna, right?
[SPEAKER_03]: Yeah, right.
[SPEAKER_03]: Because there's no air conditioning.
[SPEAKER_02]: It's the warehouse with bars to bolt the beds on the ground out of steel.
[SPEAKER_02]: He's sleeping on steel with his mattress which is,
[SPEAKER_02]: I don't even know how to describe it.
[SPEAKER_02]: You know, it's not even really a mattress.
[SPEAKER_02]: It's, you know, the zillion stains on it.
[SPEAKER_02]: It's all kinds of weird stuff on it.
[SPEAKER_02]: Biologically, you could study all kinds of weird stuff on that.
[SPEAKER_02]: from previous inmates.
[SPEAKER_02]: Yeah, that's probably been there like a hundred years, you know?
[SPEAKER_03]: And there's no AC.
[SPEAKER_03]: Yeah, you see, what is that?
[SPEAKER_03]: So you're just in their sweating on this dirty mattress.
[SPEAKER_03]: You're one of your people with 200 other sweaty, dirty mattress people.
[SPEAKER_03]: That's right.
[SPEAKER_02]: Yeah, and the smell.
[SPEAKER_02]: Oh, this smell is disgusting.
[SPEAKER_02]: I don't even want to remember all that.
[SPEAKER_02]: It's just nothing that's really, you know, and she's not fun.
[SPEAKER_03]: TJ is brand new there.
[SPEAKER_03]: When a much sought after job that the person library becomes available, hundreds and hundreds of other inmates are vying for that job, and seniority plays a huge factor in who they choose.
[SPEAKER_03]: And since TJ is a new arrival, it would seem like he doesn't stand a chance.
[SPEAKER_03]: But in TJ's mind, that's not the case at all.
[SPEAKER_02]: There was no doubt in my mind.
[SPEAKER_02]: I was getting a job.
[SPEAKER_02]: No doubt in my mind.
[SPEAKER_02]: This job is locked up.
[SPEAKER_02]: This is waiting for me before I got there.
[SPEAKER_03]: So how did you get the job?
[SPEAKER_03]: All these people are competing for the job.
[SPEAKER_02]: Well.
[SPEAKER_02]: All these people are competing for the job.
[SPEAKER_02]: I go to the library in this prison.
[SPEAKER_02]: It's like a small world.
[SPEAKER_02]: You got everybody from all kinds of walks of life, and they're for languages.
[SPEAKER_02]: So I went in there, and I said, I understand that you're going to be interviewing for somebody to work here in the library.
[SPEAKER_02]: And she goes, yeah, that's right.
[SPEAKER_02]: I say, well, I like to be considered for the job.
[SPEAKER_02]: And she goes, oh, you know, she's like, oh, what do you bring to the table, Ty?
[SPEAKER_03]: Oh, the hell are you?
[SPEAKER_02]: Yeah, I came out and I know it's right parachute it ain't right I've only been there for days You know in the prison and so I said well, I think I could be a help in the library As you know, how could you be a help?
[SPEAKER_02]: I say what I speak for five languages to start with that?
[SPEAKER_03]: What languages do you speak?
[SPEAKER_02]: I speak Creole like a Haitian I speak French
[SPEAKER_02]: I speak English, you know, and I speak Spanish.
[SPEAKER_02]: You know, some creative, for me.
[SPEAKER_02]: So I'm a Samo show, my Bullet, what's that mean?
[SPEAKER_02]: Yeah, that means what's going on guy on happening, you know, it's just an expression that they have in Haiti.
[SPEAKER_02]: I win the lady over and you knew you would.
[SPEAKER_02]: I knew I would.
[SPEAKER_02]: Sure, I was going to think about it.
[SPEAKER_02]: I knew it.
[SPEAKER_02]: I didn't feel it.
[SPEAKER_02]: I knew I was getting the job.
[SPEAKER_02]: Maybe she didn't know, but I knew I was getting that job.
[SPEAKER_02]: With the fact that I spoke a few languages in the fact
[SPEAKER_02]: thought her was married to a Haitian didn't hurt either because you spoke Creole because I spoke Creole.
[SPEAKER_02]: Next thing I know I got the job.
[SPEAKER_03]: So again, this is another crossroads in your life.
[SPEAKER_03]: That job seemed impossible.
[SPEAKER_03]: Everyone's vying for it.
[SPEAKER_03]: You just got there.
[SPEAKER_03]: You're nobody.
[SPEAKER_03]: Yeah.
[SPEAKER_03]: What made you think I'm going to take my shot?
[SPEAKER_03]: You were certain you were going to succeed.
[SPEAKER_03]: Yeah.
[SPEAKER_03]: How?
[SPEAKER_03]: How did you know that?
[SPEAKER_02]: Yeah, and this kind of goes through the crystal wall thing or this kind of goals.
[SPEAKER_02]: What is the likeness for you?
[SPEAKER_03]: I know if I can make my case to this lady.
[SPEAKER_03]: I'm in.
[SPEAKER_03]: TJ's job at the prison library is to sit outside the librarian's office and make sure all the inmates coming in have appointments and are behaving themselves while they're there.
[SPEAKER_03]: And on occasion, he also has control of the copy machine, which makes him a beacon.
[SPEAKER_02]: When I was controlling the copy machine, I was continuously offered money for copies from many, many different things.
[SPEAKER_02]: Porn.
[SPEAKER_03]: That would have copied porn.
[SPEAKER_03]: Yeah, sure.
[SPEAKER_02]: The pages of porn go for extra money dollars.
[SPEAKER_02]: You know, so hey, man, can you make me some copies?
[SPEAKER_02]: I need 20 copies of this.
[SPEAKER_02]: No.
[SPEAKER_03]: No, I guess yeah, every soft in prison.
[SPEAKER_03]: Yeah.
[SPEAKER_02]: Yeah.
[SPEAKER_03]: Yeah.
[SPEAKER_02]: Yeah.
[SPEAKER_03]: Yeah, that's the beautiful irony of this whole situation.
[SPEAKER_02]: I just don't do that.
[SPEAKER_03]: You are a by the book kind of guy.
[SPEAKER_02]: Yeah.
[SPEAKER_02]: Yeah, I am.
[SPEAKER_02]: Yeah, I'm okay.
[SPEAKER_02]: Fine.
[SPEAKER_02]: All the fact that I brought in a lot of cocaine.
[SPEAKER_02]: Okay.
[SPEAKER_02]: I did do that guilty of that.
[SPEAKER_02]: I have no problem with that.
[SPEAKER_02]: You know, the 80s, there wasn't say no to drugs.
[SPEAKER_02]: The 80s were, yes, we're partying.
[SPEAKER_02]: Yeah.
[SPEAKER_02]: And remember another thing, the cocaine back in those days was in the hands of very influential people.
[SPEAKER_02]: lawyers, doctors, actors, movie, I can name a few actors, and the Oscar goes too.
[SPEAKER_02]: That Prince of mind is supplied.
[SPEAKER_02]: Oh, yeah, yeah, go there.
[SPEAKER_02]: You know, yeah, absolutely.
[SPEAKER_02]: But it's still alive.
[SPEAKER_03]: Yeah, they're still alive.
[SPEAKER_03]: But they're big time actors that we don't have.
[SPEAKER_03]: Big time.
[SPEAKER_03]: No, I can't.
[SPEAKER_03]: It wouldn't be fair.
[SPEAKER_03]: What's their big movie?
[SPEAKER_02]: There's narrowing down where were they in the cast?
[SPEAKER_03]: No.
[SPEAKER_03]: You're such an honorable guy.
[SPEAKER_03]: You're not going to hit anybody.
[SPEAKER_03]: Even though you have to know.
[SPEAKER_03]: You serve time.
[SPEAKER_03]: You've got convicted.
[SPEAKER_03]: You're still not going to out any of them.
[SPEAKER_02]: No.
[SPEAKER_02]: It's not right.
[SPEAKER_02]: And they weren't my clients.
[SPEAKER_02]: I never saw the deal.
[SPEAKER_03]: But they were people like you sold wholesale to people who sold to that.
[SPEAKER_02]: Right.
[SPEAKER_03]: Right.
[SPEAKER_02]: Right.
[SPEAKER_03]: Right.
[SPEAKER_02]: Well, the reason why I got involved in that because I got what I thought was a pretty unfair sentence.
[SPEAKER_02]: I got sentenced by the state and I got sentenced by the feds.
[SPEAKER_02]: Right.
[SPEAKER_02]: So I got two different sentences.
[SPEAKER_02]: They gave me eight years.
[SPEAKER_02]: on the state, they gave me three years on the feds.
[SPEAKER_02]: I would have bombed it out on the feds, but I didn't bombed that because the state helped me.
[SPEAKER_03]: So it gets so complicated, right?
[SPEAKER_03]: I don't know how you keep track of it all, but talking to you, you sound like a lawyer now.
[SPEAKER_02]: No, I know more than a lot of lawyers.
[SPEAKER_02]: You know why?
[SPEAKER_02]: Yeah.
[SPEAKER_02]: Because it's my ass inside there.
[SPEAKER_03]: Yeah.
[SPEAKER_03]: So that was your impetus to go to the prison library and learn, that's when you learn the law.
[SPEAKER_02]: Yeah.
[SPEAKER_02]: And that's what I focused on.
[SPEAKER_02]: What I'm trying to accomplish is to see how I could shave some time off my sentence, because you got law clerics in there.
[SPEAKER_02]: And believe it or not, some of these law clerics are more knowledgeable than lawyers out here.
[SPEAKER_02]: Some of them are actual lawyers that got caught doing the wrong stuff and now they're lawyers inside.
[SPEAKER_02]: But some of them studied law.
[SPEAKER_02]: to become a law clerk.
[SPEAKER_02]: So I basically put everybody on payroll in that library.
[SPEAKER_02]: I had all the law clerks, why get on Tito's case, doing research, and how does you put them on payroll?
[SPEAKER_02]: What do you want?
[SPEAKER_02]: You pan with coffee, you know.
[SPEAKER_02]: I have somebody send money to their account.
[SPEAKER_02]: Some of the third party.
[SPEAKER_03]: Okay, so these clerks are inmates.
[SPEAKER_03]: Right.
[SPEAKER_03]: And these are not library clerks.
[SPEAKER_03]: These are law clerks.
[SPEAKER_03]: Right.
[SPEAKER_03]: But there are inmates with a knowledge of law or their lawyers who are also inmates.
[SPEAKER_03]: Correct.
[SPEAKER_03]: So they can help to have the power.
[SPEAKER_03]: So they're all helping you with your case.
[SPEAKER_03]: Right.
[SPEAKER_03]: And you're putting money on their account or giving them coffee or whatever.
[SPEAKER_02]: Right.
[SPEAKER_03]: And it paid off.
[SPEAKER_03]: TJ, along with his prison library crew of clerks, researches, tons of case law, and in a motion to a judge, he's able to knock two years off that Florida State prison sentence.
[SPEAKER_03]: But still, the cruel irony of it all really annoys me.
[SPEAKER_03]: TJ gets busted for supplying cocaine to users and serves years behind bars for it, and yet apparently a lot of his prison guards are supplying cocaine and other drugs to inmates locked up and they're making a fortune.
[SPEAKER_03]: Life is truly a bizarre paradox.
[SPEAKER_03]: In the next episode, how has the cocaine air podcast affected TJ's life?
[SPEAKER_03]: How did the war on drugs escalated by President Reagan in the 1980s, 37 federal agencies are working together in a vigorous national effort, actually helped TJ sell way more cocaine.
[SPEAKER_03]: And do you remember the British Airways Concord?
[SPEAKER_01]: The first supersonic passenger airliner to fly you would move and twice the speed of sound.
[SPEAKER_03]: It could fly from New York to London at supersonic speeds and get you there in three and a half hours.
[SPEAKER_03]: Well, back in the day, when TJ was flying to London on the Concord, seats were $12,000 each.
[SPEAKER_03]: This weird guy sits down beside him
[SPEAKER_03]: And on another flight, TJ sitting in first class, and another strange man sits down beside him.
[SPEAKER_03]: He's super thin, wearing weird clothes and makeup and has a strange voice.
[SPEAKER_03]: TJ has no idea who he is, but about an hour in, a flight attendant tells TJ that his seatmate is actually one of the biggest pop stars of all time.
[SPEAKER_03]: It would be wise to figure out who the con artist is in your life before they scam you.
[SPEAKER_03]: So pick up a copy of my book, a anatomy of a con artist, the 14 red flags to spot scammers, grifters and thieves.
[SPEAKER_03]: Con artists are everywhere.
[SPEAKER_03]: There's probably one in your social circle right now, but you won't know who until they trick you out of money.
[SPEAKER_03]: The woman who scammed me out of nearly $100,000 was my best friend for four years.
[SPEAKER_03]: You've been scamming us out of money this whole time.
[SPEAKER_01]: You have.
[SPEAKER_03]: And during that entire time, she was scamming everyone around me too, but no one had a clue until she got their money, protect yourself, or protect your elderly parents, or your young naive kids, or your friends and neighbors, learn how to identify the con artist in your life, or in the lives of your loved ones before they trick any money from them.
[SPEAKER_03]: I will show you what the 14 red flags are of every con artist working today, so you can spot the soulless demons a mile away.
[SPEAKER_03]: My book is available everywhere books are sold, in hardcover and on Kindle and audible as well, just Google Anatomy of a Con artist.
[SPEAKER_03]: To see some incredible photographs documenting TJ's life, go to CocaineAir.com.
[SPEAKER_03]: And if you're enjoying CocaineAir, please hit that share button and text it to your friends and family right now.
[SPEAKER_03]: And if you feel comfortable, leave us a five-star review.
[SPEAKER_03]: Reviews are really help other listeners find us.
[SPEAKER_03]: CocaineAir was created, written, and executive-produced by me, Jonathan Walton, for Jonathan Walton Media.
[SPEAKER_03]: executive producers, Evan Goldstein, and the inimitable T. J. Dominguez.
[SPEAKER_03]: Audio engineering by me Jonathan Walton.
[SPEAKER_03]: Sound design and editing for this episode was done by Mike Smith.
[SPEAKER_03]: And the cocaine air cover art is by Bobby Animation.
[SPEAKER_03]: We've got a lot of fascinating untold stories like cocaine air coming down the pike at Jonathan Walton Media, so subscribe and keep an ear out.