Ben Adair / Podcast Host (3:42)

So suddenly you're not going to jail for 16 or even 30 banks.

Joe Lawyer (3:48)

I'm going for three for three. So they say, listen, we got you on these three. That's you in the photo. And not only that, you're the right height in this one. These three we got you on. We believe we can take you to trial and we win. You want to risk trial or do you want to just plead out? And I was like, where do I sign? Going down from what I was looking at is possibly 30 years. When they were talking about it in the beginning to eight years, I was like, hell, yeah, let's do this right now. Easy choice, Easy call. Sam, Part one.

Ben Adair / Podcast Host (5:00)

Falling in.

Joe Lawyer (5:06)

And so I'm in a holding cell, and then I hear a helicopter outside, and my body freezes. What the. Oh. And then I realized, oh, I'm already caught. I'm already. I don't have to. And then one thing I think you remember is like, ah, thank fucking God. For the next eight to 12 years, I don't have to worry about a helicopter. Like, my body was like, I could let go of fear of a helicopter. And I also chuckled because in that moment I realized, oh, that's where that phrase, you were rescued. You weren't arrested comes from. Because I was like. I felt like I was more rescued in that moment from the fear and anxiety of being a fugitive. And like, oh, I could settle down.

Ben Adair / Podcast Host (6:00)

Joe, let me ask you, it sounds like you're getting in pretty deep. Did you really know, like, really understand what you were getting into?

Joe Lawyer (6:11)

No. Federal prison. I didn't know what I was getting into. I wasn't prepared for it in a lot of ways. I wasn't prepared for the kind of crimes I could get away with behind bars. There I was. I knew basic things like, you know, you can make weapons, you can get drugs smuggled in. In the feds, everything was a hustle, everything. It was an Economy man. I saw things I didn't expect to see. I mean, stuff that you would see on TV and things like. That's impossible. Like, I saw a guy get lit on fire in his cell. And I could see it from my window. It was late at night. And he just went out. His hair went up and he was screaming at a cell, and then the cell next to him, it went up. But the guy wasn't on fire. It was just parts of his bed were on fire. And then the third cell next to us, some guy had been in there squirting acetone in the cells at night when they were sleeping. And the guy was walking down the tier and he just lit them on fire. I remember watching that and thinking, that could happen here too. I know stabby's gonna have it. I know you get choked out. I know somebody could come and strangle you with a. With a. With a sheet, turn it into a rope. I know a bunch of things can happen here in there. And I'm finally watching this, I'm like, shit, they can light you on fire too. God damn. But it was. And it was dark and it was beautiful night out. It was clear. And that cell just lit. Prison's a chaos. It just really is total chaos. I mean, guys would squirt shit on guards when they would come to feed them if they mad at them, they. They got a shampoo bottle and they put some of their shit in there, stirred it up and just. And there would be this long stream of shit. Chasing a guard off the. Like, it was. It was madness. It was crazy at that level. Guys just in care. I didn't like a guy, he didn't like me. We were talking shit to each other. And so I was under impression when we were like, okay, let's meet out in the rec yard. So I had a cellmate, he had a cellmate. And what they would do is the guards would come in, they would open all the food trap doors and all the salads, all the guys who were going to come out to wreck, he and I were going to go down there and then we were going to have it out. Well, they open up the food traps on all the doors of guys who are going to go out to wreck. You stand there with your hands behind your back. A guard comes and he handcuffs you through this little slot. He handcuffs you. He opens your door. He has an open cell 12. The door opens, you step out and you go, wait towards the front of the tier and there's guards moving around. They're doing this and then they close the tier and they go to the next cell. They don't. Nobody's walking you over there. So there's, for a minute, there's a guy's just moving around the cell. We're all handcuffed. And so I saw him get out of his cell, walk over to another cell with his hands behind his back. And that door was open. And I saw a guy slide a knife into his back with his hand. So I knew he was gonna stab me. Wow. The difference between me and him is I did the same move to a friend of mine. But a friend of mine didn't just put a knife in my hand. He on handcuffed me. So this guy's walking over all cool, hiding the knife under, you know, in his clothing as he's walking back, hands behind his back, and he's thinking, we're gonna get unhandcuffed. And then he's gonna make a move on me. I don't wait for that. I now have a weapon. I have no handcuffs on me. And so I go over them where he's standing. I think he's all cool. I'm walking up to him, I kick him in the balls. He bends over and boom, boom. I just stab him. I get taken to solitary confinement. I don't just get taken to solitary confinement. I get taken to the basement of solitary confinement. Everyone down there was hardcore. It was guys who had killed other men. In the prison. There's 14 cells. That was terrible. That was terrible.

Ben Adair / Podcast Host (11:18)

We'll be right.

LG X Boom Advertiser (11:21)

Stop settling for weak sound. It's time to level up your game and bring the boom. Hit the town with the ultra durable LG X Boom portable speaker and enjoy vibrant sound wherever you go. Elevate your listening experience to new heights because let's be real, your music deserves it. The future of sound is now with LG XBoom and for a limited time, save 25%@LG.com with code Fall25. Bring the Boom X Boom.

IBM AI Agent Advertiser (11:54)

If you're waiting for your AI to turn into ROI and wondering how long you have to wait, maybe you need to do more than wait. Any business can use AI. IBM helps you use AI to change how you do business. Lets create smarter business. IBM.

Progressive Insurance Advertiser (12:21)

Brought to you by Progressive Insurance. Fiscally responsible financial geniuses, monetary magicians. These are things people say about drivers who switch their car insurance to Progressive and save hundreds. Because Progressive offers discounts for paying in full, owning a home and more. Plus you can count on their great customer service to help you when you need it. So your dollar goes a long way. Visit progressive.com, to see if you could save on car insurance, Progressive Casualty Insurance Company and affiliates. Potential savings will vary. Not available in all states or situations.

Ben Adair / Podcast Host (12:59)

Part two, the whole.

Joe Lawyer (13:07)

Because you're in solitary and because you're by yourself and you're so full neurotic, you start breaking down the conversation, wait, what do you mean by that? Well, that thinks I'm a punk. Oh, I got somebody for his ass. Oh, that. Next time I get loose, I'll go like. You can just be. You can let your mind go crazy and you can concoct all sorts of plots and intrigues against you, and you can ascribe all certain manner of disrespectful coming from that man's heart toward you and plot the fucking end of his days. That's the group of men I was in. There was killers there. There was. There was just so much my brain took in. All that crazy and violence and menace. And now I couldn't get at anyone. Like, if you've ever gotten out of your handcuffs, they don't ever give you a chance to get out of your handcuffs again. They not only handcuff you, they put a big black box around this handcuff and they lock that underneath. And I was just like, it's terrible. You can't move. You can barely, barely move. See, I was starting to get all this rage building up in me like it usually did, but I would always be able to find a victim. And now I'm like, It just cannibalized me. I went inward, you know, I just was hating myself and hating life. And I just had. And then I was. This is the most tense place I'd ever been. That tear was the most tense place I'd ever been. And everybody was. Their imaginations were completely. I mean, everyone was. I just. I had a clear mind of, like, I hate everyone. I hate life, I hate myself, everything, you know, Like. And it just went inward. So first thing that started happening was, you know, writing. I was up, I couldn't sleep, right? Chatty as fuck with myself, like, writing all the time, obsessively between words, man, what's going on? Like, almost like if you saw me in there, you would hear me, like, not talking to myself. But I just. There was a voice in my head. There was just racing. Mind racing, right? I'd be that guy if I was outside that had a bunch of notebooks and I. Explaining the whole universe kind of thing. And then I started hearing the voices in my head. First it wasn't voices. First was, like, I felt like that something's going wrong with my hearing. Like it was at a party. And I was in the bathroom and I could hear outside the door. Like a party going on, right? No noises, no voices, nothing. And then one day I heard Joe. Joe, I'm lying down in bed and I get up and I go, look out there. And I'm like, what the was that? Nothing. Nobody. Like, hey, Joe, man, you got a book? And nobody called a couple days there, Joe. Like a voice was coming above the den. Was the den always there? No, I was always there. I was always there, stayed there. I was like, oh. One day I was at my desk and I hear Joe, and I turn around. The first time, I thought maybe a homeboy was fucking with me or something. I didn't have a homeboy, but, I mean, I thought maybe someone was fucking me. And then. So I used to play concentration games where I would look at one spot on the wall. And if you look at one spot on the wall long enough, yeah, it's hard on your eyes. Your eyes want to move. And it was challenging. Five minutes the first time. I eventually got up to an hour and like, oh, psychedelic shit starts happening around that one spot. And eventually, because the world is moving and your eyes are moving, nothing is still, and your eyes move, and so that spot will start moving. And so it's like, oh, shit, it's moving. And I'm watching it move. And then it became a horse galloping. And then it became. I was like, oh, fuck, something's happening. It's kind of cool. But what ended up happening is when one day I'm looking at that spot, and then all of a sudden it was a face, and it morphed into another face. Like, oh, fuck, that's crazy. It wasn't where I was looking. It ended up migrating over here to where I looked over in my vision. Now it took over my vision. It's like, wow, that's crazy. So next day, I do it again, except this time, when I pull away, it's showing it again. I close my eyes and it's in my. It's in the darkness of my head, in my eyes. It's like, oh, the din is getting louder. And now I can kind of. It feels like there's voices, but I. You can't make them out. But now instead of, like, it's like. Like it's more animated. Jump. One day, I hear something. I turn around, and there's a little bald boy standing in the corner. Of my cell and I'm totally shocked and I'm totally scared. I feel like I'm going mad. I'm going mad. I'm going mad.

Ben Adair / Podcast Host (19:52)

We'll be right back.

LG X Boom Advertiser (19:59)

Stop settling for weak sound. It's time to level up your game and bring the boom. Hit the town with the ultra durable LG X Boom portable speaker and enjoy vibrant sound wherever you go. Elevate your listening experience to new heights because let's be real, your music deserves it. The future of sound is now with LG XBoom and for a limited time save 25% at LG.com with code Fall25. Bring the Boom X Boom.

IBM AI Agent Advertiser (20:31)

If you're waiting for your AI to turn into ROI and wondering how long you have to wait, maybe you need to do more than wait. Any business can use AI. IBM helps you use AI to change how you do business. Lets create smarter business. IBM.

Progressive Insurance Advertiser (20:59)

Brought to you by Progressive Insurance. Fiscally responsible financial geniuses, monetary magicians. These are things people say about drivers who switch their car insurance to Progressive and save hundreds. Because Progressive offers discounts for paying in full, owning a home and more. Plus, you can count on their great customer service to help you when you need it. So your dollar goes a long way. Visit progressive.com to see if you could save on car insurance, Progressive Casualty Insurance Company and affiliates. Potential savings will vary. Not available in all states or situations.

Ben Adair / Podcast Host (21:44)

Part 3 Dig your way OUT so Joe, you see this bald boy in your cell and you feel like you're going mad. What happens next?

Joe Lawyer (22:01)

Memories started coming from that period of time with my mother still alive and all. It just stories of my innocence came.

Ben Adair / Podcast Host (22:14)

How did your, like, how did the memory of your mom and the memory of your dad kind of play in that story being created?

Joe Lawyer (22:21)

Well, the thing was that all of a sudden my mother's alive again in my memory, right? I've only ever been thinking of my mother's dead. I never really thought that much about her as alive. And in this memory, my mother was still healthy. So I was like, oh, this is real innocence. My mother's healthy. And then I started having memories of my mother healthy. At that time when I was seven on Deland street, man, I remembered all sorts of stuff. What it was mostly about was that we were happy in those days. That was a happy time. My mom and dad, I remember they laughed because on that street, I used to go down the block, there was a guy who did repairs on bikes and I would go there to get free air on my tires and stuff. And then My mom and dad went there once and the guy was like, hey, you know, your son been coming here, I've been fixing his bike and doing these things. So you guys owe me a little bit of money. And my dad came home and he wasn't mad and neither was my mom. Like, hey, you can't just get that guy. I said, but he gave me free air. Yeah. He said, yeah, but all that other stuff's not free. You can't just do that. But they weren't mad. They weren't mad. I was just a little seven year old boy and I was loved. And that guy loved me down there. And everyone in the neighborhood knew me like it was like that kind of thing. So I was remembering a pristine period of time in which I was loved and nurtured and safe and everyone was healthy and I was innocent. And there I am, contrast to where I am now, going mad in solitary confinement all those years later with all the terrible things I'd done on my conscience. I earned that place in that dungeon. But that, you know, all the terrible things were going on, all the things I'd become cheering on the, on the guards and the burning, the fires and whatever, the stabbings and the other man, like all that stuff that I was. And now there's a time for me to remember. I was a sweet kid. I was like, wait, what the. Like this memory came up. It was like the dirtiest ground in the dirtiest neighborhood in the United States. And there's this beautiful little flower coming out of the concrete. That's what it felt like, man. I'm like, what the fuck? There's some beauty under here somewhere, like to be reintroduced to myself in that story. And then it started, started happening that I started saying, wait, this wasn't, this wasn't determined that I would be this guy. There's all this other evidence. I'm a kind of a sweet guy, a nice guy. I could have been something else. And so I just started writing stories from my past. That's. It felt good and terrible. I feel shitty to write out things that happened to me. We had all these talks growing up. God break me. God break. Guess what? I fucking just got humbled all day long with that thing. It was humbling.

Ben Adair / Podcast Host (25:38)

Joe, do you feel like if you hadn't been in solitary that any of this would have happened.

Joe Lawyer (25:46)

In the Bible? The book that I knew, the piece of literature I knew the most, the stories I knew most about redemption was that all the men who did something great all went to the desert and they all had to grapple with the hell of themselves. Jesus, 40 days and 40 nights. Moses in the desert. St. Paul, he becomes a Christian. He spends nine years studying the Scriptures before he becomes the greatest missionary ever. David wrote the psalms in the caves, you know, while he was hiding from Saul, King Saul. So now what I'm doing is I'm in solitary confinement. And after this happens, it fits right into my. My thinking that, oh, this is my trial alone. I have to confront myself. Everyone had to deal with their solitude. Everyone. You want to make great change in your life. And all the great changes of the men that I had studied growing up, it happened in solitude, Terrible solitude. Anguish, want to kill themselves, Solitude. And now I was in it and I was like, well, maybe this is actually what I'm supposed to. This is it. When I was a boy and they said, you have a plan, we have a plan for you. God has a plan for you. Maybe this is it. To get right here like everyone else did. All the great men that I had admired and the mystics. This is it. I'm in my solitude. I gotta be able to figure out how to do something with a solitude to. I better figure out how to let a higher harmony assert itself in here than the madness. And that's what I work to try and do to try and earn that mantle. Solitary worst experience of my life. Guess what? Paradoxically, because I believe in paradox, some of the best experience of my life, because it created the occasion for me to observe something about myself, to experience something so deeply, this humility, that it created this propulsion in another way in a very dramatic fashion. Right? So I'm broken. I'm fractured. I'm not strong anymore. Now I gotta be careful because if I want to even think about changing like how the is, I'm setting myself up. That was scary. Super scary.

Ben Adair / Podcast Host (28:42)

You are listening to The Burden Season 4, get the Money and Run. The Burden is produced by Orbit Media. Hit the Money and Run is produced by Western Sound and Acast Studios. Next up, season finale, episode seven, Fatal Peril.

Steve Fishman / Orbit Media Host (29:01)

Thanks for listening. Remember to hear all episodes all at once and ad free. Subscribe to True Crime Clubhouse on Apple Podcasts. It's worth it. You'll find other gripping true crime series there also ad free. If you want to hear Ben talk about this episode, check out the teaser. It's in the Burden feed.

LG X Boom Advertiser (29:26)

Stop settling for weak sound. It's time to level up your game and bring the boom. Hit the town with the ultra durable LG X Boom portable speaker and enjoy vibrant sound wherever you go elevate your listening experience to new heights. Because let's be real, your music deserves deserves it. The future of sound is now with LG XBoom and for a limited time save 25% at LG.com with code fall25 bring the boom XBoom.

Belvita Breakfast Advertiser (29:57)

Every day has a to do list, but adding Enjoy Belvita to yours can help you knock out the rest of it. Belvita Breakfast Biscuits are a tasty and convenient breakfast option when paired with low fat yogurt and fruit that provide steady energy all morning while Belvita Energy Snack Bites give you the perfect mid morning refuel. Best part? They both taste great so make the most out of your morning with a bite of Velveeta. Pick up a pack of Belvita at your local store today.

Joe Lawyer (30:26)

It is.

Ryan Seacrest / Chumba Casino Advertiser (30:27)

Ryan Seacrest here. There was a recent social media trend which consisted of flying on a plane with no music, no movies, no entertainment. But a better trend would be going to chumbacasino.com it's like having a mini social casino in your pocket. Chumba Casino has over a 100 online casino style games all absolutely free. It's the most fun you can have online and on a plane. So grab your free welcome bonus now@chumbacasino.com sponsored by Chumba Casino.

LG X Boom Advertiser (30:51)

No purchase necessary VGW Group Void where prohibited by law 21 + terms and conditions apply.