I do remember, like, imagine where we're gonna end up, were like, well, life was gonna be I had no clue. Sacrifice We're gonna have to make every day. It was gonna take work, and every day it was gonna take a thought process to make sure that I was going to be a different person. Hey, it's fifty.
Cent and I'm Charlie Webster. This is a five and old chapter The Twins who brought down a reward season two.
The Baby and the Bentley were crazy and caused some real problems for the brothers, but it was the third beat the Billboards they completely turned up what their lives were about to look like in prison. The twins had been together since they won people who even called them just twin for twenty eight years. Every decision they made, they made it together, and now they were both a long for the first time in their lives, they didn't have each other.
To rely on.
The billboards meant their special privilege of being housed together in prison was taken away. Jay was blamed and pulled from his cell in the middle of the night. He was put on a plane to the notoriously inhumane mcc New York. The conditions there are so bad that in twenty twenty one it had to be shut down. Over two years later it remains that way whilst the government figures out what to do with it.
So MCC New York was to us was the worst place because it was a woodsick unit in the MCC Metropolitan and Correctional Center, which is where they house Chapel Epstein and and they house 'em in the s in the segregated to shoot you know unit and on the third floor is where they kept you know with it. It's a special unit for cooperators, and it's the worst thing. It was like a like really intense watch on you okay, on your mail, on anything. Cause it's fourteen sixteen cells.
There's probably fourteen in me all the trouble makers, right, the worst of the worst. That's your last spot, either your it's your last spot before you get kicked out the program or or if you're going there to go to court to testify, you know, that's where you go. And it's the worst place. They let you out to to the rooftop me once a week for now. This is the worst part. That the food is cooked by the inmates in the building. They know that that units
for cooperators. So every time they send the food trays out, they come with a little specialist price. I'm talking about every time if it's gonna be a dead rat, little chest who knows what they do to the photo. And I actually never ate their food. That one time I survived to have a peanut butter and noodles, and my worst luck, I didn't have a phone. They had took my privileges away. I didn't have my brother for me.
It was one of the most part of the hardest ever I had gone through, since I had been in prison and no communication, no visits, being in this place, being without my brother, being like like just lost and not knowing why.
Jay was struggling, not just because he was without Pete, but in mcc New York, communication was limited so he wasn't able to see his family. Val could tell how badly Jay was struggling and did everything she could to get Jay moved.
I ended up saying her eight months and I will say thank you to my wife.
Is like when she found out I was there, she knew about the place and we would write each other's like she fought, you know, she went hiring attorney because they were on budget until finally the head of the people who are handling us happened.
To do a routine visit to the unit. And they come and they see you. They're ahead of people who actually handle or witness protection. You could talk to him, express your concern, just you know. And I said, hey, like you, why am I here? Like you put me here with the worst of the worst? Like you know what you did? I'm like, what did I do?
Like you?
No, I don't know what you do. Like listen, it doesn't even matter. One of the other guys try to kick me off at the meeting. I'm like, listen. And I waited for a long time for this. Tell me what I did? You know if I did it? You know, I'll be honest. But how am I supposed to know what I did? And while I'm here? So he liked, you want to tell me about your billboards? I was like, billboards, Hey, can't you want tell me about the billboard you put up on the side of your inside room for your wife?
I said, yeah, sure, you just got the wrong one. He said, what you got the wrong one? And he looks at him and he's like, what And you got the wrong one? I know that it was a billboard stud that was my brother. So I had a fight for eight months. I mean, val in life fought every day to get out that place. I was miserable, you know. Valve would come see me sometimes for forty minutes at times, and we had.
Problems in the country and the kids, and the kids were small.
I did have a low advantage that you could only see out the window out the in front of the courthouse. It's right across from the courthouse. And one time the val brought the kids and my son he loved baseball. Then I actually brought the basis in the tea ball and she got all the kids and they had a baseball game. But I looked at the window. You know, he's funny. He would see catchers, you know how they picked their mask off to see where the ball when
they have a high fly ball. But in his head that every time he hit the ball or something, he had knock his cap off and run. He's a baby. He's two years old, you know, two and a half years old. And I got to see that. I would look at the window and every sometimes where I used to sit on that window just see you or just look outside I'm like, I don't do anything to just be able to see val. And one of those times
I was looking at the window. It was like kind of you know, sun was setting and I'm looking down the street and I see like, okay, I see hips and I'll never forget her. She's walking, she's putting her suitcase. She just happened to stop by just to see it.
I'm looking at the window that kind of weekday and she comes to the window and she's like ruin me kisses, and it hurt me so much, like not to be able to talk to her, not to be able to see anything, and I felt closing, and like I felt closing even though I was like there there are just no commit unication that I decided to make science for the next time she ever came. I could just show her with science, you know. I made science like I
love you, be careful, and different signs. I had them like we're paint a bunch of different science like where are the kids? Tell the kids I love them, and I would put them on the window. And it was hard. It was a hard time that suffering and led me to be in a place where I was able to do the rest of my time comfortable.
The upside of the mix up was that Jay was able to pick any prison he wanted to go to. After the horrors of mcc New York.
They said where do you want to go? People will come in from different places and I asked him, Hey, how is this place? And they're like, they'll say did, They'll say that, And then a couple of guys came out They're gonna go test the fire. And I said, where are you coming from? And they're like, this spot here. I'm like, how is it? It's great. There's three day visits. The fool's good, you know. I'm like, there's three day visits. He's like, yeah, you should try to make it out
there or whatever. I'm like, I know where about to go. We're so happy with a three day visits. And and after that just kind of settled in and I do the rest of my time there, and it helped. We had treated visits also. We would have Saturday Sunday for the kids. We have to We'll switch it for Mondays.
It was night.
It was day night for us sure, and it was it was a lot of relaxed to where I got to play with the kids when they were smaller, like they had a car proaction that I could wrestle with them on the floor and just play with them. Sit down and you know, I'm right next to the garden. They appreciate it. They like to see you with your kids.
Where was that that?
I can't say? Okay, it was like, you know, it was like one of those like you when you look at we look at the positives of bad moments, and for sure that became a positive. But still, you know, it was the beginning of me not having my brother.
As Jay mentioned, the twins aren't always allowed to say where they were in prison. Some of the locations are highly confidential. When Jay first was taken from his brother, Pete was left with an empty bed next to him. What was it like when you both got separated?
How hard did you find that? It was super difficult for us? You know, they felt like it was hard for us to be together sometimes because we were like clash a line, and then it was really hard, like just in the rawness of our relationship where he's still my brother, you know. And I don't want people to get it like misunderstand. I think my brother and I are always like being each other is protected and it was super difficult to not be with them.
You know, what was it like that first morning when you realized that he'd been taken and that that was it.
You weren't going to be together that day they take him. It was like three four in the morning and they locked myself back door and I look and I'm like, they're probably taking him to the shoe and go back to sleep, and I, you know, woke up around seven thirty and the other constantly comes in throws me guardage back and says, draw your brother's shit in there, like and where my brother? So when I get up to go calm, like they took my brother, the phones were
off the security and they shut the phones off. But I'm like, damn, never seen him. Shut the poond up and he was gone. And it's hard to think that everything they had to go through. It was difficult me just thinking they were there. Now, you know, I had to get used to like not having like my poin brother. We do everything together. We made it that far together.
There's so much lesson doing our case. And it was hard because we were about to go to one of the hardest situations we've gone through them in prison, and we needed each other. It was very hard.
Because up in Silva, you'd always have the opportunity to be together and you'd always, you know what, for me, made decisions together since you were born.
Like it wasn't just I don't know, it was like since you were born. Yeah, that was hard because my brother and I have always had that mentality. Then we'd figure out a way to find a way. And I think at first it was sad. Of course, it was hurtful to think that my brother wasn't there when I first realized that he wasn't there with me no more. But in a weird way, I feel like we're gonna find a way to get back together. It's not mentally at the time, we're still a couple months into prison.
I was like, yeah, we're gonna take care of us, you know. I remember the person in charge of the of our units. I remember he had a visit and he came to me and tells me, I just want you to know something. You don't run this shit. I don't.
I was like, all right, okay, you're right, But you know, to have them kind of like people over you in that situation, they wanted to keep reminding you that they had control over your life, and they would be inappropriate about at times, you know, things they would say about my personal issues and the things they heard over the phone and stuff like that, and that kind of bothered me, like that was like something I can't get used to,
you know, then you'll never get used to. But I thinking that I was gonna be able to find a way to be with my brother was always like freshen my mind. And I could only hear from them through Viviana, and there was like another burden for her thing to put that on her to like, hey, in tapletaing care of kids and everything you do, make sure you know everything about my brother.
When it was discovered that it was actually Pete who puts up the billboards and not Jay, Pete was disciplined.
So I got a couple of disciplined writers for like endangering the safety of the step and other inmates, you know, for reaching out to the public or but you know, all kinds of stuff. It took my phone, my visits.
And then it was Pete's turn to be transferred. Putting the billboards out there meant there was a risk that his location had been compromised.
It was just a stressful time, because like I ain't to be in trust to the worst place that you can be at. I mean it was just just a
miserable place. Everyone there was miserable. It's always cold. There are all steel walls, and you have the thing they steal toilet and you're allowed to wreck three times a week if that or shower wreck one or the other recreation recreation, so you get to go out in a patio or something for thirty minutes or whatever three times a week, three times a week, and you're allowed one phone call after every after a month, you're all one phone call and cold, slowely. Some men blocks, you know,
some men that it's a mattress on a cement. What does it smell like? You'd be surprised that prisons are clean. The first thing you do when you go in to show, you and you get soap and you clean everything down. You actually cleans up and you just try to disinfect the whole style, you know, you clean yourself. Yeah, you're on your knees and discrubbing and you ladder off soap and you clean the the toilet and everything you're gonna use.
And it s gets cold sometimes, so you try to find ways to hold down to clothes, you know, to hold on to extra socks or like a laundry that you just try to keep 'em even if you wash 'em on t you know, in the sink, cause you're gonna need 'em. And I would write letters, and then you get this. They give you a stupid little pencil and you have to figure out a way to sharpening yourself, cause they're not gonna be sharpening your pencil every time
it needs to be sharpened. Like, and I would write letters and I would be asking everyone, can let me get your pencil on exac can Yeah, I have it, something to write with it. And I would read and read and read or exercise, and that time goes by so slow, I mean extremely so, especially like in the beginning, you know, and then you start to kind of like get used to that little routine. My loneliness will get the best of me. I'm quick to talk to someone like, hey,
what are you doing with it? Just whatever? Play chess, go through the wall. Yeah, you yell out your movie and make a chess board and you set up you literally will make a chessboarder out of pieces of paper and you draw your little or write night on it or rug or you know, and and you'll yell like be one to be three, you know, and wait for their move. And then when they make their move, you make the move on the board for them, you know,
and your own board. They have their own board, and you hear keys and the first thing you do is go to the door to see what's going on, wait for child, for that styropham plate that comes, you know, and you're like to let me see what they done this time. And we had the routine where Mondays was like a chili mac for lunch, Tuesdays was chicken patty day or something, Wednesday was burgers, Thursday was chicken, like the best meal of the week was like Thursdays and
Friday was like fish. That's the routine. So did you know what each day was? Is that how you kept
track of the day. Yeah, you kind of keep the trails they you know, you make these homemade calendars and if you're lucky and people in the kitchen, they'll give you extra heavy plate, and what you have to do you have to put the food to the side, and so you're gonna eat a little bit of it and save something later, cause you're gonna be hungry, and because the portions are usually small, so when they give you extra food, you gotta save it, you know, cause sometimes
like the dinner would be like a couple slices of bread, some cheese or peanut butter and jelly. I never drank milk like that, and in prison, I started drinking milk because it was just like I needed food. You know, you try to save as much food as you can. I bet you lost a lot of weight. Yeah I do, and it was like a hundred and forty pounds one thirty five all muscle. Yeah, but yeah you do. I mean, you work out, You try to keep your mind. You know,
your routine. You work out. If you have someone like a good neighbor, like you work out together and then we do Burby. But it's hard inside. Sometimes I just couldn't hold the tears back as a measure thinking about my kids, about seeing my wife leave the vista, and just just wish I could be.
There with her.
You know, it's horrible to go through that. But for me, with helped me was that I was comfortable with who I was. And a lot of people see you and they you know, they tend to like measure you up a live, you know, and it was like I don't care whatever that don't affect me. You know, I have a wife and children who who depend on me, who are there for me, who seem make me feel like I'm worth more, Like they they see something to me
that makes them love me unconditioning. And I felt like I had to live up to it, like I let myself allow myself to be worthy of it, you know, to receive it, you know, to receive their love and appreciate it, take it in and just it was hard though, you know, because and there you deal with so many people who are broken, and they want to value you as how many people you killed, how much money you have.
It's like stupid, like still of it. I thought about my family and my children that every single second, all my time away from them. So it could be a heavy burden too, you know that we're stuck in the inside and living on the outside. It's hard. And everybody will tell you don't do that, but not everyone had a Vivian on their life. Everybody it was hard.
It was hard.
I mean I had really really tough things, you know, and I think every man in prison does. And doors closed at now and you sit there and you think about all the stupid things you've done, how you got there, if you're lucky. If you're lucky, you have those thoughts. So I had this steam where when I was in the unit where I was free, where I would on check about my wife and that she would answer and
say hi, but not accept the call. I could just hear or say like for one second, not even a second maybe, and that brought me peace to hear said we're good man, because you couldn't speak to that because the minutes were limited. So in order to say some minutes,
I would do it something. I would do it ten times a day and they would like get on my ass about it, and I was like whatever it like, I just needed to know that they were okay, and just even that one one high, like if she just said I love your bad I'm missing that would just
like to just feel some connection. I got my minutes on the fourth of every month, and that day with Twils was like happy minute day, like we could talk and I wish they could tell you there was nothing going on during the month, but there was always something going on that made me like go to those minutes faster and we were literally like write each other eighteen page ladders during the weekend and see each other on
the weekend. And I don't think even then we were we able to share with each other everything that was really going.
On inside the prison walls. Pete and Jay were isolated and lonely. Outside the prison walls, their wives, valen Viev, were facing the same thing. Every time the twins transferred prisons the families had to move to. Valenviev were not only separated from their husbands, but now also from each other on opposite ends of the country. And even though they were in the US, the cartel has people everywhere.
Al Chapo is not known for his forgiveness, so anyone connected to the brothers had a huge target on their backs.
When we first came back from Mexico, we came to the United States, I knew what kind of life I was going to have to live. I would never even put my name on an email on account my real name. I mean, there's just I was always hyper aware of if I was going to do something. I always thought in the back of my mind, like, Okay, can somebody find me? Can somebody find myself and my children? So any little step I made, like my bills or an email,
like little simple things. I always had that in the back of my mind that you know, eventually somebody would find me if I were to slip up. But it wasn't hard for me. I moved around so many places, and I lived in small towns and I kept to myself. I mean through the years, I didn't, you know, acquire not one friend. And if a mom at the school was asking me too many questions or I seeing them being a little too nosy, like, I would just back off and I wouldn't allow my kids to have play
dates with them any longer because I felt uncomfortable. I felt like if somebody was going to know anything about myself or my kids, that would be in more danger than we already were. Me, out of everyone, I was the one, very very always careful, always careful, and he never let anyone get close to me. When I moved into like smaller towns, I made sure that my neighbors wouldn't ask me questions, and if they did, I would be like, oh, I'm just a single mom.
It was lonely.
It was definitely lonely because I've always been around people. I have a big family. I've always you know, I had friends growing up and I live, you know, a normal life. I felt like it was either me have you know, lived a normal life that I wanted, or protect my kids. That wasn't even an option. I was going to do whatever I had to do to protect them.
I do live a life that's very different from anybody in this world. We have to make sure that we're safe and we have to keep our children out of harm's way, so there's a lot of things that were accustomed to today. I use a prepaid phone because I'm trying to elude private investigators from finding me and tracking
me down for the cartel. I feel like I've always said that me and Jay are really strong and that we can get through anything that we've probably been through so much, and I feel like, you know, we're unbreakable. I feel like we're we can withstand more than your average probably couple good. But when it comes to like your children, it's like you have this special place in your heart for them. You never want to see them
go through anything. You just want to be protective and you just want to shelter them from that, so it's really hard for them. I just felt like our kids are not built for this. Over the years, I've sheltered them so much and put them in this bubble that I just wanted to keep them insulated from this world. They don't know, or they didn't know any of this before.
They didn't even know their father's real name because just because I didn't want them to google him, or if I knew there was this special coming out on television about their dad, I would like take the cable out, and like I had like something was going on with the cable box because I didn't want them to see their dad on television, and so like there was all these like precautions that I made, and like they literally thought that their dad was in prison for tax evasion
because I didn't want them to know. It was really hard for them to see Jay like that. And I feel like it was maybe in the beginning, when they were still babies, it was a lot easier for them because they were so young and they didn't know any better, and they honestly thought that like that was kind of their normalcy to be visiting their father every weekend in prison, And it wasn't until they got older that they started realizing that he's in jail, he's in prison. You know he's not coming home.
The brothers also had to be careful with who they interacted with in prison. You never knew who you might bump into.
Here.
I am transfer to a new prison and I get putt in this out. I was supposed to be alone, and then they came like, oh, you're going to have a Sally make room. He should be here any minute. When he gets there, I looked at my Oh my god, I know you.
Here.
I am with chapter's biggest rival.
Byming l Chapo, The Twins Who brought Down a Drug Lord. Season two is hosted by Curtis fifty cent Jackson and me Charlie Webster, produced by myself and Jackson mcclennan, Assistant producer and research support by Kasey Hurtz, Edit and sound design by Nico Polella. Theme music and original score by Ryan Sorenson. It's executive produced by Curtis fifty cent Jackson
and Me Charlie Webster. Curtis fifty cent Jackson presents a Lionsgate sound and G unit audio production exclusively for iHeart Podcasts.