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You are now listening to True Murder, The most Shocking Killers in True Crime History and the authors that have written about them Gasey, Bundy, Dahmer, The Nightstalker BTK. Every week another fascinating author talking about the most shocking and infamous killers in true crime history. True Murder with your host, journalist and author Dan Zupansky.
Good Evening. This is your host Dan Zupanski for the program True Murder, The most Shocking Killers in True crime History and the authors that have written about them. An African American soldier returns home to New York City from the Vietnam War in the late nineteen sixties is a time of turbulence and change. Racism is very much alive in America. Times are tough for a young black man in America, especially one who has fought for his country in an unpopular war. Rick Tally takes what he believes
the only economic road open to him, drug dealing. Prisoner of Dreams presents a large cast of characters from small times street hustlers and pimps to the Hollywood and Las Vegas celebrities to organize crime figures in a point and eye opening memoir. The author describes his life and times, the good and the bad, in New York City and Harlem during one of the most seminal periods in American history.
The book that we're featuring this sevening is Prisoner of Dreams, Confessions of a Harlem Drug Dealer with my special guest, author Rick Tally. Welcome to the program, and thank you for agreeing to this interview. Rick Tally, How you doing.
I'm glad to beah.
Thank you very much for this opportunity to interview you. It's congratulations on the book. Like I had mentioned earlier, first off, this is a memoir, so it's a little bit different for our audience. But again, you've just led this incredible and fascinating life and you've certainly captured all
that fascinating aspects in this book. So let's start off, Rick, why don't you tell us a little bit where you grew up and tell us a little bit about your early life and what really sort of molded you, and then we'll talk about other things like the military and basketball and prison and drug dealing. So first time, tell us how you grew up and tell us a little bit about that.
I grew up on the Upper the West side of Manhattan, and I guess what they call it ghetto, but we just called it our community.
I have a.
Normal upbringing with my three brothers and my one sister. My father was absent, even though I saw him, you know, he was doing what he did and he was into the number game. And you know, I had a a pretty basically a normal childhood. I didn't I wasn't a delinquen. I wasn't playing hooky from school, you know, even though
I did play hooky every now and then. But basically I went to school, worked after school, and like I said, I had basically a normal upbringing, no different from any of my other friends.
And uh, course this we're talking about, Uh, you were in the Vietnam War. So tell us what happens. Uh where were you in terms of age? And uh in terms of finishing high school? Where were you when this eve enlisted in the Vietnam War? How? How did this tell us about that? Well?
I was that was the era where they still had the draft. My draft was coming up the year that I was supposed to finish high school. Right out of high school, I was going into the service, which would have been in the winter becoming winter. I didn't I don't like cold weather. So I decided M of F me and a friend of mine we pushed our draft and we went in that May, and I actually finished high school. In the service, I went to Vietnam. I was in Vietnam nineteen sixty eight sixty nine, after year
the Tet Offensive. In fact, I was over there the worst war year that the United States had in Vietnam. And I was in the eleventh Armor Cave and Colonel Patten, the son of the late General Patent, commanded the eleventh Army Cave, which his father commanded in World War Two. He wanted to make general, so he devised a new war strategy for the Leventhoma calf And we went everywhere there was a problem, the DMZ whole, Taming Trails or Iron Triangle or may Con Delta, everywhere, and we stayed.
You go to the physic in the infantry, you go out and you stay out, maybe anywhere from seven to fourteen fifteen days. And the unit that I was in, and then you get stay out seven fourteen fifteen days. You come in, you stay in, three days, four days,
five days, you recoup, get amnence and everything. But the way the Eleventhoma Calf operated, you go out, you stay out ninety days, one hundred days, and then you come in to clean up the vehicles and restock ammunition and get a shower and relaxed for two days, and then right back out into the jungle on search and destroy missions. You know, In fact, we used to hunt them so hard that we used to say, I wish we could hurry up and find them so we could have a firefight and take a break.
Yeah. Well, now, what did you feel? What was your emotion about Vietnam itself before enlisting? And then maybe we would talk about.
I think I have an opinion about Vietnam before I went into the service. You know, I'd see the news footage at six o'clock like everybody else did, but I never formulated an opinion about it, and I never imagined in a million years that I would actually be there.
Now, when you went there, of course, you're you're in the infantry, like you say, you're in a battalion that's a ninety yah hundred days, so you're seeing the worst of the worst. What are we talking about? What kind of horrors did you see? In Vietnam.
Well, you know, it's nothing like you've ever seen in the movies. I I'll tell you that, and I'll give you uh an example that I basically give to everyone. Just imagine that you were standing up against the wall and there were maybe a hundred men lined up and all of them shooting at you with machine guns while you're up against the wall. That's the barrage of bullets that comes at you in a firefight, not to mention the bombs, the rockets and whatever else they shoot at you.
And you get into a firefight, maybe you break camp and you go out and search and destroy, maybe at seven thirty in the morning. If you get ambushed or you run into enemy forces within the hour or so after you going out, depends upon how big the force is. You eight nine, ten, twelve hours of go buy and it seemed like it was only five or ten minutes. Well, you know, and then you calling for air strikes. First you get am buysch. The first thing you call force
artillery support. The next thing, the artillery stops because you calling in the cobra gunships. Then after the cobra gunships, you calling and the the phantom And depends upon where
you are, you might call in the battleship. It's if you operating anywhere within the coastline where the battleship New Jersey and the other fleet can support your firefight, you calling in them so it you know, and after the firefighters over, you get down on the ground and you go in the bunkers and pull the bodies out and search 'em looking for intelligence. And you know, sometimes you a actually doing that. You might stack up a hundred,
two hundred, maybe three hundred bodies. Other times you maybe only twenty or thirty bodies, because what they would do is as they flee to the jungle, they take they dead and they or they try to take their dead and they wounded with 'em, so that you don't kill a ac good body count. But if you look at the size of the complex that you actually came upon in the jungle, you can see that it's wasn't enough to hold maybe three men. But and you see blood
trails and destroy bunkers all the way. You find a arm head leg there. So you don't get a actual count. You estimated by the size of the complex that you ran into how many you actually killed. By the blood trails or the body parts. And then there's other times that you actually fin you know, finish the fire fight. You might it might last. Let me let me give you a little better example. You as I said, you pull out, you get in the fight. It's maybe eight hours,
it feels like ten or fifteen minutes. But sometime the sports, the size of the forces of the enemy that you run into is so big and so well equipped that that eight hours will be twenty four hours. So when nightfall you back off and form a circle and continue to fight throughout the night, calling the helicopters. I'll tell it, we' the same thing that you do in the daytime. And then when daybreak comes, you pull back on line and you push forward, trying to destroy they base camp.
Then if it's if it's the forces like I said, well equipped, which would be the north Viard means army, not the vig come, then you you fight. The hours pass and if it night falls again, you form the same circle and then you and then daybreak comes again, you pull back on line and you push forward, and you do that until you destroy it. And it's like sometime the force is so big. I was in the
left of Army, Cap. I can remember running into the North Vietnamese Army where the fight lasted seven or eight days, and we would bring in on our flanks, the big red one on one side and call the first caf in on the other side, and then the artillery would drop behind the base camp and so that they couldn't run off. So it's it's a it's it's it's mind boss, you know what war actually is. It's not it's just
beyond belief, you know. And like I said, I have never seen a movie that has portrayed what a firefight is really like in no shape, form or fashion, right, you know. And I for my service, I rely, I have. I got wounded twice. I have a bronze Star, have silver star, have campaign ribbons, you know. So and it's not that I was trying to be a hero. We were just trying to stay alive. And you did what you have to do to stay alive.
And sometimes how many years were you in the service and.
Three and a half years?
And psychologically, how did how did you fare out of that? Do you see, like I said, you saw this carnage, but you seem to be you know, psychologically, how did you handle this three and a half years. What was.
One year? And let me show you the mindset of the military at the time. I had maybe a year in because I was on the All Army basketball team, and when the season was over, that's when I went to Vietnam. Stayed in Vietnam a year. When I came back from Vietnam, I had I still had something. I had maybe fourteen months for us to do. And when I came back, they sent me to Ford Hlle, Texas
to train. Then they sent me through Fort Knox, Kentucky, put me in another compact unit, and then charge and informed us when we got there that we're there to train other people to get him ready for Vietnam and to stay ready for combat in case the country needs us again. So when I came back, they didn't train me and the others like myself to go out and become productive citizens. They trained us how to continue killing. And then this charged us from the service.
Right, And so what did you do immediately after getting out of the service. You have this basketball career. Let's talk about a little bit about that. You were, uh, you played pro ball, But what was the at the time, like seventeen eighteen years old.
What was your well, when I played, like I said, I played, I played. I played on an all army team. When I came back, you know, I didn't play basketball for a while because I didn't I just didn't see it, you know, I didn't even play recreational really, you know, and it took it took a little while for me
to start playing ball again. And then once I started playing again, you know, it just all it all came back college basketball, playing the pros here to me pros here, and so forth, and so on, going into different NBA camps, you know, with playing with them. So basketball was basketball was just something. Once I became good at I was great at it, So I wasn't you know, I didn't have to practice all the time to improve or I
didn't have to do this. Well, you know, I'd get to be out of shape because I wouldn't play for six or seven months, and then I'd get a call, Yo, we wanted to play here. I worked out for two weeks and then I'd go play wherever they wanted me to play, and I'd be at the top of my game with whoever I played with. And I played with everybody, everybody who was at my age. Then who you know, guys in the NBA Archie ball everybody you know? I played with them all.
So y did you haven't what were your prospects for being NBA and and where and when did this idea of drug dealing come into to play? I mean, it's it seems out of sort out of character. Uh, you really have a drug problem when you're a teenager. I know from the book that you weren't doing drugs to psychologically handle being in the in the in the milingy.
No, you know that was that was never a prop I you know, it was a job opportunity and nothing more than the job opportunity. It was a way for me to take care of myself. It was a way for me to earn a living. So my adventure into the drug games came because a friend of mine kept saying we could make a lot of money, We could
make a lot of money. And I had just about ran out of the money that I had saved up from the service, and I didn't have any employment prospects in the so called legitimate world because the jobs that I was being offered as a returning Vietnam War veteran were dishwashing parking cars. Take this ninety dollars a week. And that's how you know this is you know, you don't know how they do anything. The service didn't teach
you anything but how to be a killer. So the best we can do for you at the New York State Employment Agency is offer you a job as a dishwasher or a parking attendant in some garage at one hundred and ten dollars a week. So I took the last of the money that I had and I partnered off with a friend of mine, and that's how I
ventured into the drug game. And the amount of money that I invested to become a drug dealer quote unquote, nobody you know, believed that I took that meet not me, but me and my partner took that small amount of money and did what we did with it, you know, because we started out with ninety dollars, which brought us sixty five dollars worth of drugs, the bags we needed, the tape and rubber bands that we needed to bag
that sixty five dollars with of drugs up. And that was in July, and by August we were making ten thousand dollars every other day.
And it now s sorry, go ahead and we and it just mushroom from there. You know.
I got with a good crew, you know, and it took off.
Get you know. The main reason for your success, you and your partner, though, is that you weren't like a typical guy that would take a little bit of uh of heroin like that. And there's no way that uh the amount that they used could ever defray the cost of uh of dealing so y at that small amount. So that's the big advantage you had. You made the clear decision you weren't gonna be doing any heroin. You weren't interested in doing any of that product. You were interested in selling it, right, No.
It was this business y it it brought him money. And the guy that I partnered with, he used but once he saw that, hey, you know, this is what we wanna do good money, he stopped.
Views. Now, you didn't initially say yeah, I want a drug deal. I want to, I want to I want to sell some heroin. I want to I want to sell some drugs. Especially when you got out of the service. What was it like getting out of the service in nineteen sixty nine and coming to New York City, How
it things changed. I mean, I know you were only in Vietnam for a year, but after you were discharged from the military, we are resentful thinking geez man, I wasn't prepared for anything, and now look what I've done the service. I've been a brave guy. I've been in the military. Is that why you had maybe you had qualms about doing something like this like selling heroin? Did you have any qualms at all?
Or it was I didn't. I have no qualms whatsoever about doing what I did. It was an opportunity for me to earn a living. It's a business. It's not about saying this is what I do. World, look at me. I'm a drug dealer. It was never about that. It was always a business decision. Enter into this to earn a living, a good living.
Bottom line is there, but there is there no qualms like I mean, not qualms, but considerations like not everybody you know and not everybody in your entire family. Can you go to and say, listen, I made a decision to sell some heroin and everybody's gonna hug you.
I mean, well, first of all, you know, it's a secret society. See that's that's the misunderstanding. That you don't broadcast this is what I decided to do. You do it in total secretsy See, that's the misconception that you know, and I can understand because you see get into movies
and you see it on television. There's people in my family who never knew what I did, to include my mother, never ever told 'em anything mm about me doing this one to protect them to they could never be put in a position to do me no harm by saying something that they shouldn't. So it wasn't me telling this person this is what I'm gonna do. Telling this person
it was on a need to know basis. If you needed to know what I was doing, then you were a part of what I was doing and not privy to everything I was doing, but only what your involvement with what I was doing. Bottom line, it's I you know, like it's a it's a very very very big misconception. And what we did could never happen again. It'll never be the way it was at the time that we were doing what we did.
Why is that? What's what's what's different about? I Mean, there's obviously huge differences, but what was the main difference that you say that it would never ever happen like that.
Again, Well, first of all, the biggest drug dealers in the world are firesing right now. You know, those are the those are the drug kingpins right now. And the way it breaks down to the streets at this day and age, the money's not the same. It's not it's n it's not cruel, uh, it's it's it's just scattered. Everything is just scattered. Then while we were doing it, it was all very much organized crews and everybody knew everybody and not just in New York and California, detroited
to call. You know, New York was drug capital of the world. If you wanted to sell drugs anywhere, you had to come to New York and the f And if you won't equate it to the mafia. That's how it was. Not families cause like they say, families, Gambino and Genevisa, so forth and so forth. And it was
only five of them. It's this crew here, this crew here, this crew here, and you know the name Pee Wee Kirker, New York, Freddie Myers, Frank Matthews, Nicky Bond, Jesse Gray and you know, I don't even want to mention Nicky Bonds and Frank Lucas's name in the same breath that I'm mentioning these other gentlemen. But that's how it was, and the tentacles reached from New York across the United States into England.
Now, how long was it before, like you you say, you took a real meager investment, you and your partner, and the next thing you know, you're making ten thousand dollars every other day. How long is it before you're a real major player, like you say, coast to coast, all over all kinds of major centers, Vegas, Los Angeles.
So it took me and Vonnie about ten months.
Wow.
See, but I had an advantage because I had been in the service, so I knew people all across the United States, and I knew their character and I knew their makeup. I knew I knew what they were about based on being in the service with them, being in Vietnam with them, I knew what type of men they were, right, right, And so when I would get on the plane and fly somewhere to hang out and party, I would stop and check out, you know, maybe sit you know what
you be interested in? This? You know this is and you know, I say, if you think you can handle this, we'll sit down and talk. Some say yeah, and some said no, yeah, yeah.
But you can trust all of them, right huh. And you could trust all of them regardless.
Right, Yeah?
Yeah.
I knew I could trust. I knew, like I said, I knew their makeup from what I went through with them. Yeah, And I knew they had level heads and I knew that they were men that were respected. You know, I respected them and they respected me, and we had I had every confidence in them when I sat down to talk with them and explain what was going on and what could go on, that it would go no further than them and I. And that's how it happened. And that's how it worked.
Now. The thing is, you're you're dealing heroin. We're talking about ten months they were in pretty short order. Your your big players, and you're making a lot of money and of course you're not doing any of the drugs, so you're pretty thrifty with your money. Are you? Also? Are you more cautious or more confident? And what do you do sort of protect is.
Always more confident? Always, you know, it's a euphoria you know. It's like, I'll give you an example. The people who use the drugs reach a certain euphoria from using the drugs. And in the beginning of my book I talk about this. You know, the dealer is trapped just like the person who's using. And the person who's using sees the glamor in life by the high that the drugs bring on. The dealer is trapped by the power and the luxury
of life that that money brings. You know. And wherever you gone go, people in that circle greet you with open arms and they set everything out for you. Oh yo, this is so and so this is you know, so you y. You know, you have a a a a power in a secret society, and the things that you can do, the lifestyle that you are able to live
is is remarkable. It's just remarkable, you know. And then the other part of it is if you're true to yourself when the time comes to pay your tab because you get caught, you don't sell your soul or your
family and your friends down the river. You stand up and take what you got coming to you, and you go through your time and you keep your mouth shut, unlike some others who claim to be this, this, and this, But when they had the foot on their neck, they told on everybody they could possibly could, and then set up even more people to be go where they didn't want to be so that they could be free.
Well, you know, the thing is, like, I know that you were you were not married, So I think a lot of these people married with a few kids. Not to say not to excuse people for ratting out, but I mean I think that there's a different kind of pressure sometimes that that some you know, that federal federal agents can apply. Let's put it that way. A lot of guys going.
Over it all. If you chose to walk on this side of the street, sure, then you have to have loyalty to something. And if you're not loyal to what you believe yourself to be, then what kind of person are you?
Now you're talking, you're talking about attributes, and I mean you're very, very confident, and you can defend any kind of criticism that I might or you know, via my audience, some people are are saying, well, you know, you sold heroin, you sold death. You must have known the lives you were destroying. How come you didn't have any qualms? How come you didn't have any reservations? You know, this is the argument if I'm me a devil's advocate, So you know,
do you not have any hesitation at all? Didn't you see any of this this? Or didn't you see it that way?
Listen?
You know.
That's the s You know, the same argument can be made for these big companies that dump pollutants into the river. What qualms do they have? You know, you do what you do based on the circumstances that you're faced with. Did I have any qualms? Listen? I come out of the same circumstances that the people who use drugs came out of 'em. I chose to do one thing with my life. They chose to do another thing with this.
I'm not responsible for them making that choice. Can't hold me responsible for them making that choice because I took the opportunity to supply them with what they wanted so that I could live a better life. It's just it's you know, and morally, morals change all the time, you know, And you look at society and you see district attorneys and lawyers and priests and rabbis preaching morality. This is how you are supposed to live. And if you don't live this way, then you're not a good person and
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Three molesting children all in the name of lived in. So how can outstanding judgment of me? Because the path I chose to live because I'm not going out and taking anybody and pulling them into a whole way a dog room and pulling the drugs down through. They made a conscious effort that they wanted to get high. I made a conscious effort that I didn't want to get high and I wanted to make money. Now, most people can't accept that, but that's the reality of life.
Well.
I also found interesting too, is that when you said you really didn't think one way or another morally for the war, and you went to war and as writing the book, there was people that based on your job, they're due too. You did your job well as also and people were killed and again, well, so exactly exactly. Now again, you you're making a lot of money and you're flying under the radar, at least you think you're flying under the radar, and probably under the kind of
thing that people would call radar. You're not a flashy guy like you say you're you know, you don't have to kill anybody. You're not really getting your hands dirty. You're not that kind of guy. You're There was enough to go around for everybody. So despite what the movies have to say, you really didn't have that constant threat. You weren't at that level. You were very secretive. You
had legitimate businesses, you concert promotion, record labels. So you put your money where where was needed in the community anyway. And you had those passions and those people connections and friends and so, like you say, you don't you don't have to wash money. You could just use money basically, and and so, but what happens in terms of were you cautious enough in terms of protecting yourself from you know, going to prison.
No, evidently not. I've spent twenty two years in prison. So now that you know, you know, evidently I wasn't cautious enough. But I didn't think of you know, we didn't move and thinking of terms of doing this. We set up our systems and that's what we did. We worked our systems. The police worked they systems. How you know, I'm the police did what they did and I did what I did. I didn't I wasn't trying to disrespect
the police by flowing anything in their face. And like I said, once again, the reality of the situation is, that's a secret society. So you not all I'm a drug dealer. I'm a drug dealer. I'm a drug dealer. I'm a respected community member of the community. I'm a businessman. Even though one of my businesses is under the radar. Even though one of my businesses is under the radar,
my other businesses employ people in the community. I'm not driving up and down the street shooting people on the street. I'm not shooting at this guy and killing an innocent child. I'm not doing any of that. I'm s c I come out, I I play with the kids in the neighborhood. I buy 'em things. I we gonna picnics. You know, we did all com bus rides everything. So it's it's not all about green greed, grease. Take money in my pocket, mind and damn everybody else. If you wanted to do
something and I could help you, I'd help you. It just that's it's just that's simple, you know. You you know there were times that women that I know who worked the whole throw There were men that I knew burglars, robber robbers and muggers whatever, so that they could take care of their habits. But they were also times that they didn't have money. And if they approached me saying, yo, reck, I'm sick. Yo, what you need and I'd give it
to 'em. It wasn't get out of my face. Get the money to do this, yo, hear man boom, Pay me whenever you can. If you don't pay me, I'm not gonna say nothing about it, you know, but I know, you know you gonna need help again. So you know, they always paid because they always knew that if push came to shove, they didn't have to go do whatever it is that they did sick from not being able to get hired. So you know, it's not like I say. You know, I wasn't about stepping on somebody's neck to
rise above the crowd. You know, that's what they w p people chose to do. I have nothing to say about that. I wouldn't disrespect them because in all acteology. They afforded me the opportunity to live the way I wanted to live. So how you know, hey, it's it's nothing else I could say about it. It's just that simple. They wanna do that, and I wanted to do this. By me doing this, I gave them a better quality
of what they was getting anywhere else, you know. And there were several times that the New York Times and other newspapers wrote about that dynamite red tape you know, which that happened to be associated with that crew, you know, and talking about the how can we give it away the way we was giving it away. The people who were using were very happy getting two for the price of one, a better grade than anybody else had anywhere else across the country. So, you know, it was simply business.
Now, Rick, I wanted to ask you because not everybody historically knows drugs, the drug business and drug dealing and drugs in general are much different intoy and thirteen. They were different. In the eighties. Heroin in New York City was abundant. Again, you were selling small amounts of heroin. So people and certainly in the Inner city were or everywhere were we able to buy small amounts of heroin, and then cocaine wasn't around or not very popular till
much later. So tell us how long this run was before we get around to talking about how they finally got around to arresting you and giving you the big time. And I know that the twenty two years you got seventeen of that last bit, so there must have been There are a couple other shorter bits in there. But ye tell us a little bit about actually heroin itself, because I think that's it's a slice of history that
people don't really know about how popular heroin was. And this is before cocaine, and so tell us how long.
You know that's also a misconception because cocaine was very popular at the same time heroin was popular. It just costs at that time so much more, right, right, But it was there because I also slow cocaine, because I caught. One of my cases was for I sold ten pounds of cocaine to federal agents in another state.
And how much time did you get for that?
I didn't get anything, you know. I was fortunate enough with a good lawyer as to where I myself and several others involved in that case beat the case, and the only person who actually ended up getting the time was the informant that brought the vEDS in as the friend.
Well that's a that's a good one. That's an interesting development. Usually doesn't happen.
Right, it doesn't. It took me two years to beat that case.
Right right, And and a bushel full of money probably too.
Right, Oh yeah, yeah, a lot of money, a lot of money. I think close to a million. Wow.
Wow, Now did you use uh? Do you always use the same attorney? I mean, this guy's done you real well?
So yeah, I use the same attorney. I use him today to handle my all my legal businesses.
Right right. And he's how many.
In his own rights?
And what's his name?
Laurence Sown? But he handled the pieces that followed drug case. He was the only lawyer to get a defended off in that case. He handled the West East one of the West East child he had. He was down with the lawyers in Chicago for the Chicago six.
Oh really yeah, yeah, so you know there.
Are several books out on him. M Yeah, he was friends with Nicky Bond's attorney. But Larry is a lawyer. He won't handle anybody who is turning informant m right. You know, he handled the air rich the case. After he had lost all his property and was sent to the penitentiary for the rest of his life, Larry got him out and got his m his mother's house back, some of his airplanes, and a couple of his mentions back for him because they were seezed illegally.
Yeah.
So Larry is a very very good lawyer with offices in Paris, California, across the country.
In a nutshell, did he get you? What was the basis of your not being convicted?
The agent's line, trying to implicate myself into other people, and they put us in a place that we couldn't possibly have been for the scenario that they said took place.
Yeah great, Yeah, it's a good defense. Now you end up you end up doing you do twenty two years in total, but your last bit you did seventeen of that. So tell us about these tell about these these bits and and what goes on there? You're you're not scared straight from doing some time?
No, why why would I be? I had already been in there. What could possibly spin me about prison?
Yeah? And it was nothing, nothing intimidating about prison When you went in. I mean, I know.
You're celebrity life period. But me, there's nothing in life that's intimidating, right, you know.
So so after the military, I guess nothing is going to stack up against it anyway, right and not really? And you know.
I did things in prison where the correction staff tried to kill me a couple of times. Why is that because they didn't like the way I carried myself. You know, they couldn't make me act out a character. You know, they couldn't get me into an argument. And if they came to me, would rules and regulations. I knew the rules and regulations betther than they did, you know, and that kind of infuriated them. It was like all this
uppity nigga. And the last time they were gonna make an attempt on my life, another correction officer warned me and told me what was gonna take place, and pointed the officers out so that like they moved me out of their reach so that they couldn't actually do what they had planned.
Where were you doing time? Uh? Those couple beds.
All over in the state of New York, all over wherever they had a bed they sent you, you know, green haven, I sing, sing Auburn Clinton, uh Attica.
So just different place. Said they process your, assess you, and then.
Yeah, you know how you like real keep you? They move you around, you know, yeah, they move you around. And actually I was. I was in comstock, and I hated comstock because comstock was so so dirty, I mean silky. When you pull up on comstock, you look like you going back in time to many easier days. And I got in there all of those rats and mice rooming around, and I'm like, you sit down and eat, and you got roaches in your food, and you in your locker
and your cell. You got mice that don't run from you, hide in your boots and you go to put your boot on and your stepping on one. So you know, I got tired of that. So one morning I didn't even go to breakfast. I just got up and went and stood in the councilor line. First one in the line, went in there and told my counselor I wanna get out of here. He said, who, who's bothering you? Tell me what's going on out We can protect you. I excuse me, I said, bothering me? I said, ain't nobody
bothering me. Are you crazy? I said, this place is silty. I wanna get out of here. I said, I don't care where you send me, just get me out of here. He said, you told me no, I couldn't leave. Two weeks later they ship me out. I w I was happy to get out of there. And then another time I had to ask my counselor could I go to Attaka? He said, nobody asked to go to Attaka. What's going on? Why you wanna go to Anaka? And listen? Man ask
to jail. Send me to Attica. You know I have some friends up there and go up there and hang out with them for a couple of years. I I you know, I'm not trying. I wasn't trying to avoid some places because they were saying this place is hard or this places. I didn't care where I'm in prison. It's a beg. You gonna lock me in that cell at nine o'clock at night and at seven o'clock in the morning, you gonna crack it and send me to breakfast.
So Attaca, Clinton, green Haven, Comstock cause the only place I didn't wanna be, and that's because it was filthy. But any other prison where you talking about it was tough and it's this, and it's that I didn't care where you sent me. It didn't make no difference. I couldn't go home, I couldn't go see my girl, I couldn't go see my son, I couldn't go hang out with my brothers. I couldn't see my mother. You know, so, uh, prison is prison n N one is not tougher than the other.
Now, let's get around to talking about how you finally they finally ensnare you and send you to prison for a long bit. And tell us a little bit about that, because I was a surprise, I'm sure. Tell us how they finally do get you, and are they their federal charges? And tell us about why this is such a big trial. You've done a little bit of time before you've gotten out charges. How comes so big now? And was well.
They caught me it was a big for a lot of time.
M hmm.
But the lawyer, Larry always chop the charges, the indictment charges down, and one thing they always do is they over indict. Like if you get caught with coming out of a building or going into a building and you have drugs, one of the charges you're gonna get truspassing burgulary criminal trust pass so you have m the drug charge will be you will be indicted maybe ten different ways on the drug charge. Then for being where you are in a known drug spot or whatever, you'll get
ten different indictments counsel on indictment for that. So in all actuality, you walking into a building with a kilo two kilo fi whatever it is that they catch you with, you have a ah. The ordinary person will look at that and go, well, he had X amount of drugs. But when the indictment comes out, you'll have seventy five counts on indictments. Yeah, because they stacked the indictment and that makes it almost virtually impossible for you to be
every charge. But when you have a good lawyer, they work to knock the top counts off the indictment, and then when you get down to the lesser accounts on an indictment, they try to make sure they can keep enough so they can add up enough years so that you can stay gone for a good period of time. But then again it's in the hands of the lawyer. If you have a proper attorney, then those counts can be willled down too. Where as opposed as you doing
twenty five years, you might do six or four. So you know, it's all how they stack the indictment is how long you're gonna go away for and what you gonna actually be convicted of. And you know a lawyer who is court worthy will always get you, if not completely off the least amount of time.
So what actually happened that, uh, you were looking at a huge sentence for once? What how did they get enough evidence against you? What were the circumstance? Uh?
The amount of money that they could not find that disappeared, that came from an undercovered by that got me the time?
How much money we talking uh about?
It was a four hundred and twenty two thousand dollars that disappeared.
We'll tell us the circumstances of the the arrest and the setup.
They came. I came from seeing and a certain person who didn't get arrested, made the arrangements, which one of them happened to be undercover. A husband and wife team gave me the money made it, and I made arrangements with someone else to see them at another time with
what they asked for. When certain things didn't take place because certain elements of their team jumped the gun and snatched other people off before anything actually took place, And only one transaction had taken place was them handing over the money. They didn't wait to get what they were supposed to get, just a little fire case. The money was missing. That angered them.
Hm.
And they sent me in front of h They sent me in front of the hanging judge wasn't even in the drug court. Sent me to the hanging judge. Judge left. But what happened was I they took me out of Judge left court and sent me across the street to one eleven, which is the drug court in New York. Everybody knows you in one eleven New York, you in
the drug court. So they took me out of Judge left court at one hundred centis Street and sent me over to one and eleven Judge Benjamin and I got a hung jewelry, so and so so they hung, they refiled, and they sent me back in front of Judge's left.
Oh and wow, that's.
He was determined to get me. And the reason when he s when I've got sentenced, my lawyer told told him, he said, look, you can't sentence mister Talley to the maximum amount of time under this conviction, Because if you sentenced him to the maximum amount of time, then what do you give a drug dealer the caliber of leroy Nikki Bahd? So I got the second highest standard under the statue as opposed to the maximum.
So what was your actual sentence?
Fifteen to life?
Okay? Fifteen to life okay? So he could apply for parole after fifteen years? Yeah, and not in an actual fifteen years or fifteen actions could behavior?
No straight fifteen In New York when they say fifteen twenty five fifty to life, that number that you get you have to do every single day of it. Oh yeah, So.
This was a serious bit, Wasn't this changes your life seventeen years? I mean not that everything doesn't change your life, but.
So it changes my life. It's definitely changing my life.
And what did you do to sort of survive? I mean, it's it's the tedium, it's the every day, it's the everything, and it's the same old.
And it's every day the same. And I couldn't even begin to tell you what I did. You know, through the riots and the stabbings and the murders and the gang fire, ain't sent the police shooting off the roof into the yard and shooting people, and yeah, you know it's it's prison is mind boggling and is boring, and him it's like crazy. Well yeah, uh.
Yeah, so but you have plans when you and you're you're bettering yourself, you're staying in shape, you're playing basketball in there. You said, it's it's good.
And I mean came one of the problems that I caught while I was in prison. There was a deputy superintendent nothing, and you know, he looked at the people that I maintained contact with outside of prison and the people who you know, stayed in contact with me, entertainers, actors, actresses. He was so irate with me. He asked me, who do you think you are? And I just you know, I didn't even pay him no mind. He said, if you because I I let me back up a little bit.
One of the things I did do while I was in prison, I was a advocate for prisoners' rights and the people that I was associated with in the prison system of the prisoners brought a different kind of order to the prison. So I wielded a lot of power inside of the prison wall as far as influence and a for prisoners, but the influence that I wielded came
from a pen and paper. So whenever there was a problem or a prisoner had a problem, they came to me and my crew because I got on the Grievance Committee, so they came to me and the rest of the grievance crew. And it was the first time that the Grievance Committee was sh powerful on behalf of the prison population. Because most of the time that job was filled with people prisoners that the police could wield the power with an influence, and a lot of the times they had,
you know, their reputations weren't upstanding. But when I got on the Grievance Committee and the people that came with me, there was no question about who we were and what we were about. Our reputations were solid, and we did things for prisoner's families and other prisoners, uh rule regulations or prison guards doing the wrong things to other prisoners.
So you know, I.
Rubbed the lot of the prison guards the wrong way. Hence that's why they were trying to get rid of me by any means necessary.
Right, But so so you're very active, no I'm.
S I'm so. You know, those are the things that I did, you know, while I was in prison, Not that I set out to do 'em, but there was a niche that needed to be filled and I I gravitated towards it.
Now you again are working the get out of there. That's your main goal is to get out nuts. You know, most people get out and do something different. And so you get out after seventeen years, Yeah, obviously you're paroled. You got to be on your best behavior. What do you do when you get out?
I got a medical license, I opened a couple of businesses with some of my friends from Nigeria. I worked with them for a couple of years. I did promoted a few concerts. I worked on as a DJ onio a major radio network. You know, I just feeling my way back into society.
And how long has it been since you've been released?
Oh, I've been on not twelve years, twelve years?
And this book here again I wanted to ask this saved this question. Why did you decide to call it Prisoner of Dreams? And how long did this very very personal and exhaustive effort. How long did it take you from beginning to end, we'll say in the writing process, tell us a little bit about and why prisoner of Dreams? What is the meaning behind that Prisoner of Dreams? Is?
An article came They had written an article about me playing basketball and fashion design and some of the actresses that I knew who came to see me when I had one of the small bids that I got out on. And also a coach of the Golden State Warriors came into the prison to get me out so that I could play for the Golden State Warriors.
Right, So.
The San Jos Mercurynews Parade magazine where the article appeared, called that article prisoner of Dreams. So I said, we all are prisoners of our dreams. So I applauded to the book, saying, if you look, you know, and I wrote about that how I saw myself in the book and what I was gonna do. And am I a man that I truly believe myself to be And I am no longer a prisoner of my dreams. I'm gonna start to live 'em again. Right, And that's how the title came about.
Right, And you've been doing the book signings. What what is it like? I mean, you've done so many things in your life and so many things that are tough, and you've and you've survived, you persevered. What's it like doing this? I know I've done good book signings and I really enjoyed them. What's it like for you to be an omin regarded as.
I'm enjoying them. I'm having a time of my life.
Yeah.
Yeah, I'm having the time of my life.
Uh.
You know my thing now is that I'm earning a living and it's safe money. I don't ever have to worry about someone coming for me to take it.
Yeah, well that's it. Yeah, that's a good feeling. And Prisoner of Dreams. Uh, you have a website regarding the book at all? How can people if they're feel necessary to contact They can go.
To prison of Dreams dot com. They can go to Amazon dot com. They could go to Bonds and Nooble dot com. They can go to Strategic Media Books dot com. Those are probably and Facebook.
Are you on Facebook under your name or under Prisoner of Dreams?
Under my name and under Prisoner of Dreams?
Great? So that's interesting. Okay, that's good. I want to thank you very much Rick for coming on and talking about your book. Prisoner Dreams. Congratulations on this very fascinating story. Thank you, thank you for writing it and sharing it with our audience tonight. Thank you very much, Rick, thank you for having me. I want to say again, thank you very much. And you've been listening to end Sure Sure.
In my book, I talk about you know a lot of people who were legends in their own in their own time. I'm truly legends and that lifestyle. On the twenty first of this month, Freddie Meyers passed away. I'm not sure if you're familiar with his name, but New York Freddy Mayers. There's movies and things about to come out about him. He passed away. He did twenty four years.
So well, thank you very much, Rick for this which is the best of luck. And hope to hear from you again soon. Thank you all right, Thank you all right. Have a good night, you too,