I learned to bake at FCI Elkton. That’s not the Food and Culinary Institute, it’s a Federal Correctional Institution in Ohio.
After being sent away for a long time, I was in a seemingly hopeless situation because there was no clear direction in sight, and very limited options, but I was determined to find a positive side. What drove me was an innate desire to innovate and improve myself and my circumstances by staying positive and making the time into an asset.
Although the facility had a small class teaching basic food safety and preparation, there was no baking program there. In the absence of formal training, I utilized the huge equipment resources and nearly unlimited food and ingredient warehouse available, and purchased nearly 100 baking and culinary textbooks to guide me.
From that point on I spent every spare moment I had in the kitchen. Even with time and material limitations, I taught myself skills in every aspect of baking including pastries, desserts and yeast products. Commercial yeast was unavailable, so I learned to bake using only wild sourdough yeast. When my skills created the demand, the facility bought a commercial pizza oven for me to use. I specialized in sourdough hand tossed pizza and breads in a way never seen before in this environment. The baking program I created is still in use today.
Anyone could become depressed when life presents seemingly desperate circumstances in a place known only for negativity and despair, but I found a way improve myself exponentially under adverse conditions, and to improve those conditions in the process.
Even with the success I’ve had personally, I am most proud to have been able to share what I’ve learned by teaching it to others, and by developing a program that will continue to benefit others long after I have moved on.
After release from prison I immediately enrolled in college and finished a 2 year business degree in 1 year with a 3.9 GPA. I graduated on December 19th 2021 and launched Inside Out Cookie Co on the same day. I began in a shared space kitchen, and moved into my own bakery space less than a year later. Inside Out Cookie is a mission based cookie company providing second chance hiring to both formerly incarcerated people, as well as people in recovery. I strive to become a foundation for others to stand on while growing the company nationwide to provide help and support to others like me while teaching baking and business skills.
[4]UNCHARGED CONDUCT – The government’s press release included some details and left out others to create an image resembling police equipment. In the context of the entire picture it was nothing of the sort, and would never be confused that way.On the day of my arrest I pulled up outside a mailbox store with music thumping from my tricked out truck. I wore a $17,000 Rolex on my wrist, the same ordinary clothes I’d just worn to have lunch at a strip club with my criminal attorney, and left that meeting half drunk at 2 PM. I had piercings in my face, and no consideration whatsoever for the fact that I’d just double parked in a fire lane outside the store. The address on my real drivers license showed a PO box, and I’d been receiving both my legitimate and illegitimate mail in two different boxes at that store for over a decade. I greeted the owner by first name, as usual, and requested the mail for both of my addresses including a package sent to someone else.
I don’t know who in this scenario was supposed to have been fooled into believing that I was a police officer or secret agent. I wasn’t trying to convince anyone of anything. Impersonating the police is a state and a federal crime, and I was never charged with it despite the ridiculous news report.
I was wearing a polo shirt, cargo pants and the same boots that I frequently wore. As far as I know this is normal everyday attire. The police may wear boots, but so do construction workers and Santa Claus. Calling cargo pants “tactical” doesn’t change what they are, they came from the mall.
My truck had 24″ chrome rims, 5 video screens, off road gear, a winch, and chrome all over it. There were lights inside the turn signals that flashed red in the back and orange in the front, just like every other car, but brighter. Vaguely calling them “flashing lights” brings the colors red and blue to mind. They weren’t. It had an air horn, like 18 wheelers have, the feds generically called it a “siren.” It wasn’t. I was a stripper for several years at Dallas LaBare, part of that job was going to bachelorette parties in costumes. I had handcuffs clipped around the door handle as a souvenir from those days. They had been there for years, and it would take a minute to un-hook them. I frequently carried north of 10 grand in cash on me, and I had a handgun in the console, fairly common in Texas. It wasn’t in a holster, or on me, it was outside in my car.
I made IDs for a living and I was on my way to deliver 7 sets of fake cop IDs and drivers licenses with different peoples pictures and names on them. These were made at the request of a customer. I didn’t show them to anyone or claim to be anyone other than myself, and no one ever said that I did.
I was never even accused of trying to to pass myself off as anyone. I was definitely a douchebag, but I never impersonated anyone and I was never charged with that because it didn’t happen.
Why would a police officer do this? These are the people that we trust to protect us. About two months before my arrest there were a series of robberies committed by men impersonating police in Dallas. We can forget, for the moment, that the description of these men was an overweight, bald, black man and a middle aged white man with silver hair driving a red Dodge Charger. I can only presume that this fine officer wanted some headlines for “cracking the case” and saving the world. One would hope that after the fact that the two men were caught and arrested a few weeks later an honest cop would drop the charade of my involvement, but he did not.
(If you enjoy creative fiction, you can read the press release below)
[5]PRESS RELEASE –
[6]COUNT 3 – I beat up and robbed a child molester. Regardless of what legal gymnastics and phrasing followed, that is the conduct that I woke up on this particular day and chose to participate in. This is the story of that…
Four years before my arrest a man we knew, a pretty serious drug dealer, sexually assaulted a friend of mine. In the process of dealing with him for what he had done we discovered pictures of what he had done on his laptop computer. It also showed that this wasn’t the first time he had done this, and some of the images depicted children. This, with what I already knew about him, was a serious problem.
For a regular person what to do next is obvious, but criminals can’t call the police. With limited choices I chose one that seemed the least terrible. We confronted him again, and threatened to expose him unless he left the state of Texas. He left. I moved the files, they called this “downloading,” from the laptop to a storage drive to maintain the threat in case he ever came back, put them in a box in my garage, and that was the end of that situation. I never saw him again.
I have no loyalty to this kind of person, so when pressed for information I offered him to the agents. I had these images along with records of his doing millions of dollars in overseas drug trafficking. I made a deal with them, accompanied them to my house, gave them his files as agreed, and he was indicted on federal charges. The feds wanted more.
After months in isolation I was awakened in jail at 5AM one morning and hauled to the federal building where I was formally offered a lesser sentence if I provided information on my friends. I refused, and and two weeks later I was charged with possession of the images that I gave them. Technically, yes, I did possess them, but that’s not what this law was designed for. I was charged with this, nearly a year after my arrest, as retaliation for refusal to inform. In exchange for his testimony against dozens of people, the feds gave this guy a very light sentence.
It is not a question of discovering the commission of a crime and then looking for the man who has committed it, it is a question of picking the man and then searching the law books, or putting investigators to work, to pin some offense on him.
Former US Attorney General Robert H Jackson
The story I tell here is the only version of events ever alleged. No one ever so much as suggested that any other conduct took place. I regret having anything to do with this, but it’s difficult to feel “remorse” for the way I handled a person who would brag about drugging women, and meeting underage girls on the internet. Running a predator out of town doesn’t make me one. I’ve never been this kind of creep, and no one has ever claimed otherwise.
Possession of his files in a box in my garage, where they sat for four years without me even viewing them, is all that I was accused of and all that I am guilty of. A federal prosecutor stated on the record, in federal court, that I possessed the files to extort and blackmail this person, you can read those transcripts below. I happily open every detail of my case for anyone’s scrutiny of both the circumstances, and my character and conduct.
Nevertheless, due to mandatory sentence requirements, I’m required to register on Megan’s Law. I have no idea why, my offense is not listed on my state’s list of required offenses, nor the federal one, but the name of the charge is apparently enough. I filed repeated motions and appeals and the only thing the judge would ever say was that it is required for the type of offense, my actual conduct is, apparently, irrelevant. The registry list was designed to inform the public about people that pose a danger, yet it’s also full of people who urinate in parking lots, go streaking on a dare, and apparently people like myself who beat up a child molester. While I am sorry for living the way that I did, and for the way that I handled the situation, I am not sorry for what I did to this person, he deserved worse. This happened 14 years ago at the time I am writing this.
Anyone who wishes to judge my character based on my being on this list, what I did is what most parents wish for these kinds of people. Had I chosen to betray my closest friends, I would not be on the list at all. If I’m a person who holds loyalty that deeply, that I would accept this heavy a burden to protect my people, is that not the kind of person you’d want on your team? The feds gave this guy a pass in exchange for testimony against others, just like they did with Bill Cosby, Jeffrey Epstein, likely many others. They gave me the opposite treatment for refusing.
This became Count 3: 18 USC 1466A(b)(1) Recommended federal sentence: 97 months. This story as I describe it was undisputed, was proven by a forensic investigation, and was discussed in court here: Although I lost the objection, it was a long shot that had never been applied this way before, but the circumstances are described nonetheless.
Prosecutors have become very clever in creating charges to stack into an indictment.
Harvey Silverglate, Civil Liberties Attorney
[3]INDICTMENT –
[2]COUNT 2 – I took steroids. I began taking them while working as a stripper and they were a required part of existing in that world. To me, at the time, steroids were to men what breast implants were to women, aesthetic enhancement through science. I never made a dime selling steroids. My best friend did sell them and asked me to pick up a package for him at a PO box store that we both used. Homeland Security agents were following the package and waiting for him. I came that day instead. They were vaguely aware of who he was and asked for his name. I gave them some misleading stall tactic statements but refused to identify him.
I was arrested. I was later told to either assign ownership of that package to someone else by informing, or to accept ownership myself and take the penalty for it. I chose the latter, my buddy was never charged with any crime.
The part of this charge “intent to distribute” refers to my intention to deliver my buddy’s package to him. I knew exactly what was in the package, I knew it was illegal, I did it anyway, and I am guilty of this crime. This was count 2: 21 USC 841(a)(1) Recommended federal sentence: 18 months
If I had to choose between betraying my friend and betraying my country, I hope I should have the guts to betray my country.
E.M. Forster
[1]COUNT 1 – I learned to make fake IDs in college while dating a girl who needed one. I was fairly poor, so I bought the equipment with my Pell Grant money, and soon so many people wanted one that I was making 6 figures. Content with my success I quit school, one of my brilliant ideas. Over 12 years I made over 20,000 fake IDs, almost entirely for college students, but a few other types too.
I was ambitious enough to pull off a complex crime, and too lazy to work at a real job, but I ended up working full time at not getting caught. Funny how things work out that way. I was brought up to be a good person with an instinct to do right, but I chose a path that required lying and selfishness, which created a lot of conflict. With making money and avoiding the police as my main goals, it didn’t exactly bring out the best in me.
It never occurred to me, when sitting on a couple hundred thousand in cash, to take my money and open a legitimate business that doesn’t carry a risk of going to prison. Instead I squandered about 80% of the money on travel, booze, gadgets, and women. Another one of my great ideas. It was a lot of fun, until it wasn’t.
I wasn’t trying to be a serious criminal, and I never wanted to hurt anyone, but I ended up dealing with people who imported narcotics, could get you a truckload of bootleg liquor, or were associated with organized crime, and the entire spectrum in between.
Things grew in ways I never intended. This was my crime, which I am guilty of, and it became Count 1: 18 USC 1028(a)(5) Recommended federal sentence: 16 months.
