Coming from a neighborhood with basically third world conditions, Eugene Brown was trouble pretty much from the beginning. So prison time was almost preordained. Eugene has been a barber before incarceration and that trade kept him plenty busy behind bars, as everyone had to shave and be bald then. He read voraciously, but became intrigued with the game of chess as those in the yard were a fascinating group. Luckily, he was taken under the wing of a great mentor who taught him the basics of ches...
May 13, 2020•56 min
Until he started "using", Kirk Charlton was a pretty good by his own account. But brushes with the law, including some Fed time landed him behind bars for over 20 years. Luckily, he began his career in prison, becoming acquainted with his gift as an artist. Only out on his own for a few months, Kirk has had to adapt to the fire hose of information and stimulation. Occasionally overwhelmed with social media, a colorful world and interaction with others, Kirk is navigating successfully but there a...
Apr 29, 2020•52 min
Return guest Georgia Durante has seen the stunt driver business change. More often than not, the drivers need a second job to keep alive; it's more part time and the advertising business has taken over the movie business. It takes a team that has worked together to pull of a great stunt, and Georgia hasn't been working the client side like she used to. And the current pandemic hasn't helped, when people can't get close to each other. Plus, she books a home - where Sharon Tate was murdered, incid...
Apr 09, 2020•53 min
A return guest, Emily O'Brien has pivoted her Canadian business since the last show to be called ComebackSnacks.com. Her women-owned business hires ex-felons, is a social enterprise and she's working to get other businesses to change their social policies. In this particular pandemic, Emily's business is lucky in the fact they produce food so they have remained open. However, adjustments are being made, including free deliveries. Their stores are located with other grocery stores which has kept ...
Apr 09, 2020•49 min
Meg Thibodeaux and Dick Hennessy, Felony Inc hosts, talk about their incarceration experiences to let the public know rehabilitation is not really at the top of the institutions' lists. Health, both physical as well as mental, is low on the totem pole and our hosts have seen fellow inmates die for both reasons. The recent pandemic doesn't help, with visitations from family, friends and attorneys not allowed to see the inmates. And with the close quarters of the prisons and the changing of the pr...
Apr 09, 2020•57 min
Selling drugs at 11 and incarcerated at 17, Lawrence Carpenter knew he was an entrepreneur, it just took some time to realize he was in the wrong business. Now with a family, he thanks them for saving HIS life, because being there for them has given him the strength to live on the bright side of the law. Deciding to start a business, he wanted something he could do now - not after four years of college - and something that didn't take a lot of investment to get started. So, cleaning offices was ...
Apr 01, 2020•49 min
Established author and professional audio voice, Todd Brown joins the Felony Inc. family yet again. Even with all his success, Todd never forgets to appreciate where he has come from and where he is at the moment. He still gets up in the middle of the night, walks around his home and touches everything, just to remind himself of how good life is. For the first time on the show, Todd talks about his childhood, where his mother took a beating from her husband on a regular basis. He was so outraged...
Mar 05, 2020•51 min
Returning to the show to continue inspire ex-felons to stay on the right side of the bars, Sean Beers has an update on his world-wide enterprise. Defying all odds, Sean has evolved from ex-felon to attorney, CPA and now CEO of Portland Product Werks, an international clothing brand wholesaler. He recommends a book, "David and Goliath", by Malcolm Cladwell. These short stories about individuals who came from not-so-sumptuous backgrounds to become successful points out that sometimes overcoming to...
Mar 05, 2020•51 min
A friend of occasional host Dave Dahl, Tim Jensen is a Nebraska native who grew up in a mixed, but not particularly violent neighborhood. But it did lead him to drinking, which became his addiction of choice. It didn't start out as alcoholism, but more like a right of passage. That lifestyle contributed to his father dying when Tim was 12 and his sister was caught up in drugs. Tim is philosophical about it, having seen both better and worse situations for growing up in his travels around the wor...
Mar 05, 2020•55 min
A Boston native, Josh Menges moved to Salem, Oregon and enjoyed a middle class upbringing. He enjoyed it a little too much, starting as a tagger in the seventh grade. From there he got caught with pot in school, graduated to cocaine as a young adult and of course sold it to support his own habit. In and out of the institutions until his early 30's, a real friend "ratted" on him while on parole simply to get him caught and hopefully straightened out. It worked. He got into a circle of addicts who...
Feb 19, 2020•50 min
Deciding "never, never to go back (to prison)", our returning guest Meg Thibodeaux was a single Mom when she entered the prison system with a son 18 months old staying on the outside. She began her criminal career as an entrepreneur, doing a bad job of choosing a dating partner and being dazzled with the huge profit margins selling Ecstasy drugs. Her involvement put her in the circle of organized crime families in the New York area and also in the crosshairs of law enforcement. Feeling disconnec...
Feb 19, 2020•54 min
Anything that can keep an inmate from returning to prison benefits everyone - society, the taxpayers, the inmate's family, and the inmate - says Dan Bielenberg, founder of Business In A Box. A return guest, Dan was a hands-on home builder and designer before the housing downturn. He decided to work for the State for the job security and wound up being fascinated by reforming law offenders. He has seen change, even in the words used, toward the attitude of reformation. For one thing, the word "in...
Feb 19, 2020•53 min
"Fresh Out - Life after the Penitentiary" is Marcus' series of YouTube shows to help ex-felons stay out of prison for the next phase of their lives. Born to a young mother, Big Herc never got the full story on his father, and spent most of his youth growing up with his grandmother. His step father was in the military and he moved around a lot, but ended up living in the Bay Area for a time when being a "BMX" on a skateboard was pretty cool. But a divorce caused a move to a tough, crime-ridden ne...
Jan 29, 2020•52 min
What's happened to CrimAnon since our last interview? Criminon was a true startup in the sense Bear and Zane had just begun their meetings outside of their institution. It was a real test of seeing who would show up, who would be taking the steps and who would acknowledge their addition to crime. Beginning on the same night at the same church, they began with a handful of people for an audience. In a matter of weeks, it has become a standing-room-only affair and they have added a second location...
Jan 13, 2020•55 min
Darrell Buchholz started his prison career early, pre-18 years old. Intrigued by learning more about crime from other criminals, he got right back into the same cycle after serving his sentence. To feed his habit of getting high, random burglaries were his routine until, of course, he got caught again. Then 10 years in the Federal system woke him up. He had a family at that time and decided he wanted a career that gave back to the community and provide a living for his family. His brother sugges...
Jan 08, 2020•48 min
In South Florida, Marq Mitchell heads an organization that helps those unfairly impacted by the criminal justice system by providing support, education and assistance re-entering society at a successful level. Marq knows the criminal justice system well, having "entered" it at age 13. Lots of challenges and deficits to work through and when he tried to re-enter society, had no support. Once he got himself on his feet, he decided that he wanted to help others facing the same situation. Having nev...
Jan 08, 2020•43 min
During the day, Dave always took some of his Killer Bread with him when he went and spoke to groups. But since he sold the company and doesn't run it anymore, he now takes his wisdom, words of encouragement and personal love, not the love contained in his recipes. He talks about his big fall from grace which landed him in prison, more than once, and how he decided to get it right and founded his bread company. That's part one. Part two has started after his second big fall from grace. Company so...
Jan 02, 2020•53 min
Just turning 40, Dick reflects on his current life, and putting on events constantly in his stripclub industry. Dick promotes heavily and even his one-night, "Miss Exotic Oregon" is five months in the making. But he has been doing this long enough that he does have it down to a business science and all the steps are predictable. He has learned how to artfully dodge the stigma of being in the adult entertainment business while providing the service his audience demands. For instance, donating to ...
Nov 21, 2019•42 min
Growing up in the tougher parts of North Portland, Oregon, Jay Eakin turned to dealing drugs and wound up becoming one of his own customers, an addict. Then, to support his own habit, turned to robbing banks out of desperation for cash and served time for four bank jobs. In prison, he needed cash - again - but with no banks in prison to rob, he turned to art. And tattooing was his medium, and he was good. Eight to ten hours a day he worked on being excellent; "When you do a tattoo for someone wh...
Nov 21, 2019•49 min
It's a 12-step fellowship for men, women, youth, survivors and their families who are committed to supporting and living a crime-free life. Both Zane and Bear spent almost their entire incarcerated time studying the criminal life style and the causes and incentives to keep doing it. They made a science out of it by studying addiction and discovering that when you diagnose addiction, you find that gambling, drugs, alcohol and any other addiction mirrors the high that criminals get when committing...
Nov 06, 2019•46 min
Dick Hennessy seemed to be attracted to trouble from a young age for reasons he still doesn't know. It seemed that the "Bad Boys" were popular with the girls, so Dick became one. He went to college, where he had a good job, but with long hours. He soon realized that selling weed at the same time he was doing everything else, he could make a lot more money and have a lot more fun. Graduating with degrees in Sociology and Business, Dick dabbled in the music industry as a way to launder money, but ...
Oct 23, 2019•49 min
The whack in the side of the head for budding entrepreneur Scott Jennings. He had always been the kid who would buy a candy bar for a dime and sell it for a quarter, but he got caught in the drug business and had three years to turn things around, which he did. He had a tough time getting a job after release - typical - but got a break working on fitness equipment. With encouragement from his girlfriend-now-wife, he started his own business. Go Big or Go Home is his credo even though it drives h...
Oct 23, 2019•49 min
Clackamas County, Oregon, is very, very fortunate to have Doug Vanzant working to make their county a better place to live. Doug's clients receive an upbeat, can-do attitude that trickles down from the top - Doug himself. Ex-felons come to Doug to get their head straight and to train for well-paying, solid jobs so they can contribute to the community in which they live. His background is typical for those who go to prison. Coming from a dysfunctional family, he focused on playing sports, but the...
Oct 09, 2019•48 min
Doyal Smith is the Executive Director of Dual Diagnosis Anonymous. Which means you are more than alcohol dependent or drug dependent, you're that plus another dependent. Really, really dependent. Most of the members start out with a mental health issue, then the alcohol or drugs become a natural second outlet for the pain. A Portland, Oregon native, Doyal's father was in prison, while his alcoholic step father beat his sister. A perfect situation for Doyal to end up being in a paddy wagon at age...
Oct 09, 2019•50 min
Scott Spencer-Wolff had a pretty "normal" upbringing and never did get into the drug scene. But in the middle of college he decided to make money by stealing it. Being incarcerated in the state of Florida the first time wasn't too rough. An accomplished pianist, Scott even had the opportunity to do performances in the community, so not too harsh. But he messed up again and did a tour of the State of Washington prison system for stealing money again. Upon release, he started a legitimate life wit...
Oct 02, 2019•52 min
Growing up a gay guy in the Midwest corn country, Christopher Beasley kept a lot bottled up growing up. He grappled with his double identity for years before coming out, but has used that struggle to better work work with formerly incarcerated people who have to deal with the stigma of being ex-felons. His time behind bars came from being involved with the meth scene and just "got pulled over too many times". Being gay in prison was traumatic for Christopher but that was where his transformation...
Oct 02, 2019•44 min
He was making over $2 Million a year when he was 19, but it all came crashing down when Coss Marte's drug network got busted. He went into prison in not-so-great physical shape and was told to either shape up or he was going to ship out. His first attempts at getting into shape failed but then he hit his ah-ha moment, went out in the yard and ran a few laps - and he had a new addiction. It evolved into a program utilizing limited equipment and space and ConBody was born. He lost 70 pounds in the...
Oct 02, 2019•37 min
Attorney, CPA, corporate executive, entrepreneur and ex-felon, Sean Beers is a perpetual motion machine. A return guest, Sean continues to push his company forward, and pull others with him. Listen to the letter read on this show from someone who never met Sean but heard his story. The optimism that comes through Sean's story is uplifting to say the least. A great attitude, a great work ethic and anything is possible. Just ask Sean. Oh, and check out "The Power of Perseverance". Felony Inc Podca...
Sep 04, 2019•52 min
Seven and a half years in prison at an early age formed the passion of Noah Shultz to reform the current incarceration system through the stories of the incarcerated. Part of that is his own story, evolving into Forgotten Culture, a clothing company dedicated to the forgotten youth, a way to honor them through representing their feelings and hope. And the clothing is not only fashionable, it is built with quality and is affordable. It brings awareness and revenue for programs. It's business with...
Sep 04, 2019•49 min
Going to prison actually took Kee Nelson out of the gang bang situation and gave her time to get her life right. With a passion for food since a child, Kee went from the first couple of jobs out of prison to starting her own business to pursue that passion with her food cart. However, she zigged when others zagged. Her meals are unbelievable: Huge, stick-to-the-ribs and jaw dropping. She and her children - her daughter is on this podcast too - are up at the wee hours preparing and each day is di...
Aug 14, 2019•54 min
