 Rwy'n gynhymru i'n allan i gweithio platform o mwy social media, a dwi'n ffrind ychydig sut yn gallu'r gwmp directlyb, ac rwy'n gwybod i gynnig y cyfnod o'r cyfnod yn ddangos i'r mewn cyfnod i'r rannu'r bell, ac dwi'n gwybod i'r cyfnod i'r pwysig mewn gyrdedd yn y cyfnod i'r cyfnod i'r cyfnod i'r cyfnod i'r cyfnod i'r cyfnod i'r cyfnod i'r cyffredinol. Yn ymgylch yn rhoi, Felly, wedi gwneud y gwaith yw Brian Banks? Brian, yn ymwneud? Dwi'n gore. Dwi'n gore. Cymru ydw i. Nicolwch, brirau. Fy hwnnw dyma'n amser i'r ei ddechrau. Llywodraeth yn gweithio'r llei. Fy ffwrdd ar y cyfnodd. Mae'r ddechrau bryd. Mae'r ddweud cyrraedd rydyn ni'n gweithio yw'r cyfnodd. Mae'n gweithio'r ddweud, rydyn ni'n gweithio'r ddweud. Rydyn ni'n gweithio'r ddweud. fawr oed, a dyfodaeth, o ie, mae'n dda i'n ei bwysig, mae'n dda i'n dda i'n ei ffordd, yma, yma. Mae'n gweithio ffibol ac mae'n gweithio gwahanol, mae'n ddifulo sydd chi'n ei wahanol. Dyma, mae o'r ffordd mewn gwirionedd, dyma'n ddifwn ni. Mae'n ffrwng, dyma'n unrhywau o gwbl y gallu'n hyd i'ch gweithio mewn fyrdd yma, I'll say I went through years ago, would be a bald-faced lie. But I will say that I've learnt how to manage the experience and what that experience has done to me. I've been able to turn that negative into many positive wins. So, today I'm in a good space. I've got a little family, I got a five-year-old boy, I've got a beautiful lady that I will soon call my wife, and I'm free. So I'm good. That's amazing. You've seen all the positives on life when you spoke yn ddiwrs am y ddysgu ti'n rhan oherwydd gan ymdaint. Felly, mae'n angen i gyd i'wch am y gallai haes. Mae'n oedda i'r angen i gyd y gallai fel y cyffredin. Felly, mae'n angen i gyd yn edrych i gyrdd desmu ar y gyrdd y wneud roi chi'n amlŷn am eu bod pob ddim yn fyddio gwanedd fath. Felly, mae'r angen i gynllunio ar gyfer hynny. Mae'n angen i gyrdd i gyd yn crossflethau. Mae, gofyn sy'n gweld yn Deyrnas Caerhoes Cymru, Cymru, Cymru. A Lwn Beach is pretty notorious in the U.S. We got Snoop Dogg and a lot of famous football players, athletes, musicians, Cameron Diaz, a lot of celebrities have come from the city. So it's always, as you grow up in our city, there's this saying, you're really going to do one or the other. You're going to get in the streets or you're going to get into sports or some type of music or whatever the case may be. Very early on in my life, I would say around nine or ten years old, my mom got us, my younger brother and my older sister got us involved into sports. Various types of sports from karate to basketball, football. And as a young kid, everybody always thought that I was going to be some six foot ten, seven foot tall guy because I was always tallest kid in class. I was always tallest kid of my age. So naturally basketball was something that was pushed more than any other sport. And it wasn't until I got till, you know, I played one year of pop-wonder football, which is, you know, a youth league. I was ten, playing with 12 year olds. I did that for a year, didn't really like football and decided to focus on basketball, you know, believing the story of I'm going to be this tall kid. And it wasn't until I got to, I would say my freshman year in high school. It's my ninth year that to make a long story short, I was persuaded to give football another shot and actually was, you know, really fucking good at it. And so I ditched basketball my sophomore year completely focused on football. And by the end of my sophomore year, I was right. No, excuse me, by the end of my sophomore year, I received my first recruiting letter from the University of Southern California, USC. At that time, Pete Carroll was the head coach who is which he was the head coach of Seattle Seahawks. And I remember when I got that first recruiting letter my sophomore year, it really, it really gave importance to the sport of football. And it really showed me the opportunities that could come from playing that sport. And so I really totally gave it my all once I got that first recruiting letter. And I remember by the end of my junior year in high school, which was the following year. I finished that year ranked 11th in the nation as a middle linebacker. I was being recruited by every division one university you could think of. I could have went to any school and played, you know, played ball on a full scholarship. I committed to USC. They were that school was, you know, close to my heart growing up. You, you see other linebackers like Mike Pollard played a game and played it so well. And the legacy that he left at that university, you know, it really left a huge mark in my life as far as what I wanted to be and who I looked up to. And so here I was the summer of my, the summer going into my senior year in football ranked 11th in the nation. I'm in newspapers. I'm in magazines. I had my own mailbox on my high school campus. It was about a handful of us that were being recruited so heavily by universities that we would show up on campus and we had our own mailbox on school. And I would just have stacks of recruiting mail every single day, take it home, show my mom. She's just, you know, she's just baffled that it's starting to really take, you know, take, take place in my life. That summer going into my senior year, I was in summer school. I was making up, you know, credits that I didn't really, you know, getting during the season, the regular school season. And at that time, and I'm making a long story here because I think there's some parts here that people really have never heard about how things actually transpired and took place. That day that I was in summer school on campus that this whole thing took place, there was a film crew that was supposed to show up at our high school campus. They were filming a documentary about the number one high school football team in the nation versus the number two high school football team in the nation, Concord de la Salle, which is northern California. We were ranked number one and we were going to have the first, excuse me, the second national high school football game that had ever been played in the U.S. And I was slated to be our defensive leader, one of our team leaders. And so this film crew wanted to film a separate portion of this documentary that they were putting together solely focused on the leaders of the team. And on this morning they were supposed to arrive on our high school campus, they were going to follow me around school, kind of show my day in and day out of, you know, what school life was like, you know, for me. So here I am, I'm in class and waiting on this dude to show up. I still remember his name, it's just like Dan Freeman. I haven't talked to him since. But I remember talking to him the day before and he was like, I'll be there, I'm going to follow you around. And so, you know, I was excited about it in high school, you know, you're here and you're going to have cameras follow you around. So I'm sitting here and, you know, you know, foot tapping, I'm just waiting for this guy to show up so I can parade around school with these cameras. In time pass, time pass, another period, another class guy still didn't show up. So the last period of the school day, I remember kind of getting fed up. I don't know where the fuck is this dude at. And at this time, this was in 2002. Cell phones were really huge at that time in our high school. It was only a select few people that had cell phones. It was a girl in my class who had a cell phone. And I remember asking her, let me use your phone and step outside and I'm going to call this guy and see where he is. And so she gives me the phone and I raise my hand, I ask my teacher, let me kind of step outside. I'm going to use the phone and I'll step right back in. Now, literally my plan was to do exactly that. Step outside the door, use the phone and come back into class. The teacher instead said, OK, you can step out and use the phone. But if you step out, I want you to take these papers to the front office and deliver them for me. There's some school worker, whatever it was. I said, cool, I'll take them. That took me away from class. And so as I'm trying to make this phone call and get in touch with Dan, I've got these, you know, papers in my hand. I'm walking to an entirely different side of the campus. And as I go into the office, I hand these papers in and I'm making my way back to class. I run into a girl that I've known since my middle school days. So, you know, sixth grade, seventh grade, eighth grade. I've known her older sister. They knew my younger brother. You know, we kind of grew up in the same neighborhood somewhat. But for the most part, we all know each other. And so I'm walking back to class. I run into her. We exchange and hugs, small talk, and that small talk led to flirting. That flirting led to us agreeing to go to a known make-out spot that was on our campus. We had a few different places on campus that everybody knew. You could take a significant other. You can go and kiss, make-out, and do whatever you want to do in your own privacy. And that was your thing. So we agreed, let's go to the spot. We started making our way there. Now, in order to get to the spot, you had to go into this building called the 700 Building, which was technically off-limits to all kids except for a higher educational program. And there was an adult nursing program that took place downstairs. So the spot, in order to get there, you had to go through the front door of the 700 Building, pass these adult classes, go upstairs either through a flight of stairs or take the elevator. And once you get to the second floor, you had to... I mean, like on Ninja Toes, you had to literally tiptoe through this corridor where there's classes, open, in-session teachers, teachers' a's, full of students, everything. So you had to literally make your way through it in silence without getting caught because if you're not supposed to be there, they'd recognize you, they'd know you're not supposed to be there, you could literally get in trouble for it. So we go up into the 700 Building, we get into the elevator, we go up to the second floor, we come out, and we are both on the same page. We know what we have to do to get to the spot. So we're quietly walking through this hallway. We make it pass, no one sees us. At the end of the hallway, there's a back stairs that takes you back down to the first floor. At the landing of that bottom step at the first floor, there's just a small little space before the door opens up and you're back out into, you know, back outside of the building. But that door is locked from the outside, and the only people who could basically come in are from, you know, it's from the exact same place that we came from, which was upstairs. So it's kind of a secluded little nook in the back of a building that is the known make-out spot. So we successfully make our way to this spot, uncaught, we get there, and we start making out. Kissing, we're touching. At one point, you know, in my mind, I'm thinking, okay, this is starting to progress. I'm thinking, you know, in my mind, yeah, we're probably going to have sex. And so I'm like, we're getting to it, we're kissing, we're touching, we're making out, and pants are unbuckled. I remember my pants being kind of like halfway down, you know, to like mid-thigh, and her pants mid-thigh. And, you know, it's a piece that I've never shared, and the reason I personally have never shared, and it's crazy that I haven't shared it publicly. But the reason I haven't shared it is because I do have a sense of respect for women. And I do have a sister, I have a mother, I have cousins who are females. And never in my life would I want to do or say something that could bring embarrassment to a woman. But while we were making out, and I was touching her, I started to put my hands between her legs and touch her there, and this smell just hit me. This very bad smell coming from her. And I mean it was to a point to where it just threw me off. I just, you know, I went from being excited, turned on, and ready to go to, I need to get the fuck out of here, you know? And I never said it to her, you know? I backed off, I started to slow down with the making out, and eventually I made up this excuse about, you know, I got to get back to class, I've been gone for too long, I took papers, I did this, I got to go. She got mad, she got this attitude, you know, I made this abrupt stop, she didn't like it, and you could see it on her face. So I make a few jokes like, hey, don't trip, you know, we're going to get back to this, you know, let me just get back to class, let me finish this, and we're going, you know, now that I know what's up, we'll do it, you know? So she laughs, kind of, you know, a little faint laugh, and I felt like that was enough, you know, got myself fixed up. I hit out the double doors that were, you know, the locked doors. I went out and went back to class. That was it. I finished school, Dan, the reporter, the guy who was doing the documentary, never showed up, never returned a call. I still don't know what happened to this day with that guy. But I remember school being let out, and right after school was football practice within about two or three hours. So normally what we would do is a group of our teammates, buddies, we would leave campus and about a block away from our school was a very famous burger spot that we'd all go to. So we went there and we had food, we ate, trying to kill time before football practice started. Finished eating, made our way back to campus, we're on campus, and we probably had about an hour and a half before practice started. So we're sitting on these benches, which are kind of the center of the schoolyard, and we're just hanging out, waiting for the time to pass. And as we're sitting there, shooting the shit, talking, you see one police officer walk by and goes into the main office building, two, another one shows up, there comes a pair, another pair shows up. So we started to notice this heavy presence of police officers starting to build on our campus going into our main building. In my school, Long Beach Poly is in the center of not the best neighborhood, it's the hood. So to see police on our campus was not unusual. There was always something going on, heavy gang activity in our neighborhood, there was gang activity in our school campus. So it wasn't unusual to see police, but the number of police that we were seeing really took our attention. Took our attention so much so that I remember getting up from that bench and I literally walked to one of the police officers. I said, hey man, what's going on? You know, I was very outspoken when I was young and I didn't have a problem talking to people. Hey, what's going on? And I guess the police didn't know who exactly he was looking for at the time. He says, ah, I don't know, man. You know, I didn't finish school, so I'm back to finish school. He made some kind of, you know, a weak joke attempt and I, you know, I whatever shunned him off. I went back to sit down with the homies, they asked me, what do you say? Nothing, I guess it's nothing. So we go back to just hanging out, waiting for practice to start. About five or 10 minutes later, a teammate's dad who would always show up to every practice in every game. He's coming in the same direction from where the police were coming from on to campus and headed towards us. He gets towards us, he takes me, he says, Brian, let me talk to you real quick. And he pulls me away from everybody. And he said, hey man, when I was walking on campus right now, I heard the police say that they were looking for a kid by the last name of Banks. Did you do something today? Did you get in trouble? I said, I ain't looking for me. I didn't do nothing. He said, are you sure, you know, you didn't get into any trouble today to make the police want to come? I said, man, I don't, you know, I'm not involved in nothing. He said, OK, well, check with your younger brother to make sure he didn't get into any trouble because I'm pretty sure they said Banks. So I said, all right, I'll go check with my bro. My brother was in basketball practice on the other side of campus. So I head over to where he was, he's in practice. I'll pull him out of practice. I said, hey, come here. He's like, what's up? He says, first year in high school. I said, what did you do today? I didn't do nothing. I said, bro, what did you do today? I swear, I didn't do anything. I said, are you sure because supposedly the police are looking for somebody with the last name of Banks. And he's like, I didn't do nothing. I'm straight. I said, OK, go back to practice. He goes back to practice and I head back to. I'm starting to walk back to where my guys were waiting for practice for football practice as I'm walking back over there. I'm you know, I'm thinking I'm wondering if what the the the my teammates dad said was even true. Did he hear the right thing? And so I remember before I went back to my home boys, I went to this these steps and it was kind of like a two step right outside the parking lot of our school campus. And I just sat there for a bit. And I'm thinking like, what the fuck is going on? Now this whole time I'm thinking not one to my mind am I thinking there's somebody on campus accusing me of rape. Now one time I'm thinking the girl that I was just making out with when called the police on me and there's an issue. Not even in my mind. I'm sitting there on these steps. I have my feet up on one step. I'm sitting up on the higher step and I have my show my forearms on my knees and I'm just kind of sitting there at the parking lot. And maybe a few minutes later from the left side of my face corner of my eye, I see the girl who made up the accusation, her mom, her older sister and about three or four police officers exiting the campus. And I'm saying they literally walked right by me. I don't know how they didn't see me. I was sitting right there on the steps. The steps are at the door. They exited and made a left towards the police cars. When I saw that, my whole like heart just dropped. I'm like, oh shit. Now the reason I said all shit was not because I'm thinking this girl is accusing me of sexual assault. I'm saying oh shit because this girl is, her mom is a known gang member, been in and out of prison, drugs, very aggressive and she is very much in the likeness. School bully kicked out of class a lot. Shit starter, fighting girls. She was a very rough on the rough edge. So I'm thinking fuck, she probably did something. Got in trouble. They saw me moving around with her today on campus and they probably want to talk to me about it. And I'm like, I ain't got nothing to do with it. I'm not going to deal with it. So I remember when they left the parking lot and they turned left to the police cars, I stood up and I went to the right of the parking lot. And as soon as I got out of view of them bending around the parking lot, I just went and talked full sprint out of the parking lot through the baseball field of our team's baseball field. I ran across the field, went out the back gate and I went to my homeboy's house who lived two blocks away from the high school campus. His spot was another area that a bunch of football players will go to waiting for practice. He had like Nintendo 64 and PlayStation. So we go play games and everything and wait for practice. That's the nearest phone I knew I could get to. I'm like trying to call mom. I run into the phone. I'm out through the parking lot, through the school, two blocks down. I bust into his door. I'm sweating frantically. And everybody said, yo, what the fuck? What's going on? It's like eight, nine guys in there playing games. And I said, damn, I think the police are looking for me. And everybody start busting our lap. You know, it was like, yeah, whatever. I'm like, no, I swear to God. I think the police are looking for me. Like for what? I don't know. I don't have a clue. I said, let me use your phone to hop on the phone. Call my mom. She's in school. She was a teacher. She's still a teacher. Call my mom. I said, my mom, I think the police are looking for me. She says, for what? I was like, I don't know. I don't know. But someone told me the police are looking for me. And it's police on campus. And she's like, well, what did you do today? I said, I didn't do nothing. And in my mind, I'm thinking I didn't do anything that would make the police want to come talk to me. You know, I didn't tell my mom I made out with a girl on campus. And so she goes, well, if you didn't do anything, then don't worry about it. And I was like, I don't know. Something just don't feel right. And she said, OK, well, then come home. So I said, all right, I'm going to come home. I skipped practice. I left my book bag in my homeboy's house. And I jetted to the nearest bus that I can catch, the public transit. And I took the bus home. And probably took me about an hour to get home. I get home. My mom's at the house at that time. She had got off work and made it home. And so she asked me again, what happened? What's going on? I don't know. I just, someone told me the police were looking for me. And, you know, obviously I don't, I didn't do anything. So I don't know what's going on. She said, well, you probably overreacted and overthinking the situation. Don't worry about it. And so I let it go. I said, OK, cool. I went back into my room. I took a shower. I was hot in the summertime. After I got out of the shower, I jumped in bed. I was tired. I went and took a nap. And I laid down, fell asleep. I was awakened out of my sleep by this pressure pushing down into the middle of my back, sinking me into the bed. I'm laying on my stomach. And I can feel this just pushing me down, pushing me down, pushing me down. So naturally I wake up and I joke. And I hear like, don't move. Stay still. Stay right there. Don't move. Don't move. Put your hands behind your back. And I'm like, what? Put your hands behind your back. I'm putting my hands behind my back. And man, they handcuffed me. And they yanked me up off the bed. And when I get yanked off the bed, that's when I'm finally seeing what's going on in my room. There's like three, four police officers in the room. They got the guns out. They're not pointing at me, but they like got them down. I guess I'm a big kid. I was 16. I was 61, 62, 225. And I guess they felt they need to treat me as an adult. I don't know. So guns are out. I'm handcuffed. They're barking orders at me, telling me to find clothes to wear, asking me where to close it. I wore to school today. I'm showing them where to close where I'm picking out something to wear. And I'm getting, they're dressing me up with the handcuffs on, throwing a sweater over my head. And they are forcing me out of my bedroom down the stairs and out of the house into a police car. And I remember as I'm leaving my room, my mom's room was just a jake, like just down the hallway upstairs from mine. You come out of my door, her door is facing my door, bathroom, closet, her door. And to this day, man, I've never seen something that really affected me more than this was my mom dropping to the ground on both of her knees and screaming at the top of her lungs, just in pain and just saying no and why, you know, please don't take my baby and what's going on. And you can't do this. I mean, she's screaming and crying and I'm being pushed and let out of the house and they throw me into the back of this police car and I'm a big kid. The police cars are super small, super tight and they throw me in with the cups behind my back. And on a small note, I remember these two kids were playing out in the front yard a few houses away. And once they slammed the door and walked away, these two kids were looking to see what was going on and then they probably eight, nine-year-olds and walk up to the police car and they kind of looked, put their hands on the glass and they looked through and here I am handcuffed and sweating and I don't know why I remember that so much. It just felt like I was like I was a fish and a fish ball. And all of a sudden I was no longer part of the real world that and then, you know, I had these kids like staring me down. Anyways, the police eventually get into the car, two guys, one driver, one passenger and they begin driving off. Now mind you, I hadn't been told what was going on yet. I didn't know what was going on yet. It wasn't until we started driving off. We probably got to the freeway heading back to Long Beach that I finally speak. I'm like, hey, yo, what's going on? Can you at least tell me what's going on? The passenger cop looks back halfway and he's like, yeah, man, you've been accused of rape. Said you raped some girl on your campus. I had nothing else to say from that. Just hearing that, it's just, what do you say? You know, obviously I didn't do it, but to just be in handcuffs, to be taken away that I was taken and then to be told that that's why I was took. It just put me in. I think I was in shock. I got a little bit of shock, you know, and I just sat there in the back of the car and they drove me to a hospital to perform a rape kit. The most invasive thing to this day I've ever experienced in my life. I've been to prison. I've done strip searches. I've done cavity searches. I've done all of it. I've never experienced something more demoralizing, more humiliating in my life. You know, they lay you in a hospital bed. They start pulling your pubic hairs off of you so they can collect samples. They're scraping skin off a certain, you know, doing skin scrapes off a certain parts of your body. They're drawing blood and taking fingerprints and taking pictures. You know, and it, I mean, it's just all happening. You know, it's just all happening. And when they finally finished doing that, my detective came in right away in the same room, sat me down and he played good cop with me. I was 16 and he said, look, man, I know you. I know you do no mess like this. I know you play football. You're a good guy. Just tell me what happened. Just tell me everything. And I promise you we'll figure this out. Just we just need to know what happened. And so I told him every single thing that happened. And that was enough to make a case. And one in a, when you're dealing with a rape case or a sexual assault case, as long as you say that you were in the area that the crime was supposedly committed and, you know, you were there, that's enough for you to be sent to court. So I told him everything, me and this girl made out, everything I told you. And they said, all right, cool. Everything should be fine. You should be good. Let's just, let me, let me go back, talk to some people and we'll figure this out. They took me from the police, from the hospital to a police precinct. And I was in a, they put me in a holding cell one hour turned into two hours, two hours, three, three to four, four to six. I'm in this tank and I'm, you know, I'm freaking losing. I'm crying. I'm stressing. I'm wondering what's going on. But then at the end of my, in my mind, I'm also building this confidence of, man, they're going to figure this out. This is, this is bullshit. I know they're going to figure this out. And after about six or seven hours, police came and they said, look, man, we, you know, we still going over this. We ain't figured it out yet. So we're going to, we're going to take you over to the local juvenile hall and you'll be there for prior day or two until we figure this out. And that was the beginning of, of incarceration for me, man. They, they took me to Los Padrinos juvenile hall in the city of Downey. And I got there probably like two, three in the morning. They couldn't put me in a cell yet. Everybody was asleep. So they put me in this day room. They gave me this makeshift bed that looks like a little raft, like a boat raft. They put a little mat inside of it and they slept me. I slept on the floor the first night. I didn't even sleep. I was awake the whole time. I just laid there in this little mat. And to the sun came up. And I'm thinking, as soon as the sun comes up and they open his door, they're going to figure it out. I'm going to go home and I was there for another day. Then I found out I had court in three days. So I literally just sat on my hands for three days. I didn't eat. I didn't come out the cell. I didn't talk to nobody because I'm just waiting for them to, you know, figure this out. I went to court. I saw the judge, the judge denied bail. The judge denied me being released on my own recognance. Why? No reason whatsoever. I had never been arrested. I had never been locked up, never even been in handcuffs. I have no international ties. I have no family in other countries. We were basically poor. So I didn't have money to flee or go anywhere. And my life was football. All I wanted to do was be on my BS school playing ball. So where was I going to go? You know, there was no reason to deny the bill. The only reason the bill was denied was how the detective wrote up the case. They basically look at how it's written up, what lies that the girl made, and that put together, I guess, was enough for them to say he should remain in jail while fighting the case. They ended up giving me a bond of $1.25 million. Obviously, we didn't have that money to post that. They scheduled me for another court date for like two months. I'm laughing down, but I remember thinking when I was going to go to court. In the beginning, you always think, they're going to figure this shit out. I'm out of here. This is crazy. Every time I thought they were going to figure it out, it just continuously got worse. It went from sitting in a jail precinct for six hours, thinking everything would be figured out, to sitting in a juvenile hall for three days, thinking everything was going to be figured out, to be given two more months to sit in jail to my next court date, and then it just progressed, progressed, progressed, progressed. Next thing you know, I'm in there for a year. I've been locked up for a year. I was tried as an adult. I fought what was called a fitness hearing. In the state of California, you fight a fitness hearing. That fitness hearing determines whether or not you are fit to remain in juvenile court, or you should be tried as an adult. There's a five criteria determination. It's like, was a crime premeditated. Do you have any priors? Were there any attempts of rehabilitation from those priors? The seriousness of the case and the gravity of the case. I lost on the seriousness and the gravity of the case based on how it was rolled up. That alone sent me to adult court. Now I'm 17, and instead of facing minor camp time or juvenile hall time, I was now facing 41 years to life in prison. They tacked on a kidnapping charge which carries life in the state of California. What was happening behind the scenes, I would later find out which the accuser admitted to on video was that every time she would hear my side of the story, she would add more to her story because she didn't want to look like a liar because it was getting so deep on her end that she had to keep pushing the story. So while I was sitting in jail, I was in jail for one count of rape. Next thing you know was two counts of rape. Next thing you know was three counts of rape. Three counts of rape and sodomy. Next thing you know was three counts of rape, sodomy and kidnapping. Now I'm facing 41 years to life. These charges just continue to stack up and I had no clue. My mom had no clue. We didn't know how this was happening until years later, finding out how that all went down. Was she accusing you of rape on multiple occasions at multiple times or just at one time? Every time you penetrate, which there was no penetration, we never had sex. But the way that the DA questioned her was did he put it inside of your vaginally? Yeah, how many times did he try to do it? He tried to put it in there three or four times. Okay, that's three, four, that's three counts of rape. Did he try to put it anywhere else? Did he try to put it in your butt? Okay, that's odd. It was kind of like, I don't know if there were cokes in her or if she was making it up. I don't really know what was going on on that side. I just know that charges continuously kept showing up and adding up and adding up. Now, mind you, this whole time the DNA test was never, they never used, or my lawyer never used the DNA to disprove all of what was being said. This girl had accused me of penetrating her in the report she accused me of ejaculating the side of her, that she saw and felt the contents. She described it as white and slimy. She said that it was inside of her. It was on her clothes. They did DNA testing within a couple hours of us being around each other and there was no DNA found. Excuse me, I'll take that back. I was excluded as a source of DNA, but there was another male source of DNA found. And this girl had claimed that she was a virgin. She had wasn't messing with the guys or anything, but they found another male source of DNA on her underwear and a secretion of her underwear. But I was excluded, but my lawyer never used the DNA. Well, that's a good quote. To this day I don't know what I can speculate in the way that my lawyer carried herself. She was on her way to becoming a commissioner, a judge in LA. She didn't want to lose any more cases. So she began to pretty much pawn off her cases, getting her clients to take deals to gain favour of the DA and district attorney's offices and the judges. So that when she did run for commissioner to become a judge, that she would get these favourable reports from the DAs and the judges. So the DNA was never used. It was never used in juvenile court. They sent me to adult court. I faced life in adult court. It was never used in adult court at all the entire year that I fought the case. That's the mainstream of evidence? That would have disproved everything. The day of my arrest, this accuser had six different statements as to what happened. Six different statements on one day. When I mean by six different statements, it was like, we got to the 700 building and Brian grabbed me and yanked me into the elevator. In another statement we got into the 700 building, Brian wrapped both of his arms around me, picked me up and put me into the elevator. In another statement, she said, Brian grabbed me by both hands and did something. And then there was another statement where she said, I willingly walked in by myself into the elevator. He didn't force me at all. And none of that was enough to say, maybe she's lying. Is she not right in the head, huh? I would definitely say she is not right. Mental health, kingdom, bipolar, something. Your guess is as good as mine. I really never tried to break down the psyche of this person. I do know, and this is not to minimize her actions at all. But I do know that her mom was fucking crazy. And I do know that, I mean I could assume that if she would make up what she did, a lie like this and her mom found out that this was a lie. And instead, you were actually on campus trying to fuck somebody. I'm pretty sure her mom would have probably destroyed her. So I think it was a bit of that. But if you asked me why this whole thing happened, it was because I walked away while we were making out. Do you think if you had had sex without you wouldn't have been in this predicament? Yep, it would have not happened. I think she felt that my personal opinion and we obviously never got to the bottom of it because even through the video where she's recanting, she's still lying in that video about things. But if you asked me what I think truly happened was that she was aware that I smelled what I smelled. She was in fear that I was going to go back and tell the homies what I just experienced. And so instead of her going and dealing with that, she went back and told a girl in her classroom that I took advantage of her. And I forced her to do everything. And this girl, she basically went back to class, wrote this note that said Brian just raped me. How much corruption is involved? Because a lot of these lawyers and QCs we have back home, a lot of them do deals and throw people under the bus to get their promotions. There's scandals everywhere, there's corruption everywhere, police, law, anything. And good jobs bad, there's always good and bad people everywhere. But how much corruption do you think is involved and is your skin color play a part in this? I would definitely say that skin color plays a part. But before I get into that, as far as corruption, you know, I know that from the moment that I was arrested, her mom filed a lawsuit on the school district for lack of security within days. It was a money grab right away. So I think that that obviously played a part into the lies continuing and the lies progressing because now there was money on the line. I do know that the letter that she wrote to her friend about her being raped. There's two versions of this letter. There's one that's supposedly in her writing, and then there's one that's supposedly a copy of that. It's a totally different writing. I've had it looked at by hand, a writing expert who looked at it immediately and said that's not the same writing. So either someone rewrote the letter for no reason. Why would you rewrite it when you have the original? And if you did rewrite it, that means that you've, you know, you've enhanced it and you've done something different to it. Mind you, the girl that received that letter years later had a confrontation with the same girl who accused me of rape. And she told her that it was a lie, that it never happened. And that's what kind of, we later, the investigators in my case, they would later find this, this young woman, her name is Cheryl. And they talked to her about it. She said, yeah, I actually, a few years later, I got into argument with her. We were friends, we got into argument and I confronted her about it and she admitted that it didn't even happen. So we got her to help me in my situation. Does color play a part? Absolutely. Color definitely plays a part. I think you're, I think finances play a part too. I think money plays a part. I think that who you have representing you and what you can do financially with that is going to determine a lot. But yeah, definitely, I think color plays a part. And I think being a black male of interest because I was a good football player and because I was on the way to play for a university, I think there was a, I think that there was an intent to make a statement out of me to our community in a way. Why doesn't your skill have your back? No, that kind of adds to a little bit more of the corruption. The school initially and I learned later that the school made every attempt that they possibly could to join my attorney in fighting this case on my behalf. They wanted to help get down to the bottomist because obviously if I lose, they get sued. My lawyer rejected all attempts of them trying to help. I do not know why. I never asked why I never were told why, but the lawyer for the school district and this is kind of going away from what we're talking about now. But when I was sentenced and I was in prison, the lawsuit continued. And one day while I was on the level three maximum security yard, I got a letter saying that I was going to be deposed in this lawsuit. They're going to pull me out of the cell and they're going to basically do a deposition with her lawyer, her civil attorneys and the civil attorneys for the school district. So they ended up showing up and deposing me and at the end of that deposition, they handcuffed me to take me back to the cell and the lawyer for the school district ran out into the hallway. He said, one minute, can I get one minute with Brian? And he leaned in and he said, hey, I just want to let you know you were royally fucked in your case. His exact words, they fucked you over. We made every attempt to try to help you in this and your lawyer did not respond to us, did not get to us. And about three weeks, three or four weeks later, I'm in my cell and I get caught out of my cell. You got legal mail. I never get legal mail. I didn't have an attorney. I go pick up the mail and it's my case file. I had never seen my case file. I had been locked up three and a half years. And I never have a copy of my own case file. Never had it. And he sent it to me because he wanted me to see what was in it and that's what got the ball rolling to me appealing my case and everything. I sat there in my cell and I would obviously wait until like three in the morning when my cell was asleep because I'm reading sensitive shit. And I'm reading over my case. I'm reading that the DNA, I never got the results of the DNA test even though I knew it was negative. Why were you not screaming for them? I was ignorant to the system. I was ignorant to the system. My family, we never dealt with the legal system before. None of my family was a rats that dealt with the police. I didn't know at 16 don't talk to the police. I didn't know that. I knew listen to the police and do the right thing. You've been raised right there. So you're trying to do the right thing and it's backfire? And I never got my case file and I never questioned that because I was 16 and I didn't know I should have that. When I got it, I realized the DNA evidence was right there and it was never used. I found out she has six different statements, six different stories. I found out that all is different stuff, you know, and this was only because the lawyer for the school district, he packed your lawyer. This also shows a bit more of our ignorance to the system. My mom listened to a friend of hers who said, this is the lawyer that you need to choose to help your son. And the reason you should choose his lawyer is because she went to USC with Johnny Cochran. You know Johnny Cochran? Yeah. And that alone was like, oh, she was in school with Johnny Cochran. Okay, so she must know something. Let's go with it. My mom chose that lawyer because of that black woman, older lady, and literally treated me like a kid. I wasn't privy to any information when we were dealing with the case. Everything that was going on between her and the courts, I knew nothing about it. She would come and visit me, she barely came to visit. The few times that she would come and visit, she would ask a few miscellaneous questions. She would flip through some paperwork and then she'd disappear. And then she'd have an investigator of hers show up, which my mom had to pay for as well. He'd ask a bunch of questions. I'd give him all the phone numbers and people to go talk to to help him figure this out. I found out that that investigator never went to the campus, never went to the supposed crime scene, never talked to any of the people that we said that they should speak to. My mom sold her house, sold her car, sold all her property to pay for this lawyer and her investigator. She lost everything. And they did nothing. I mean, for an entire year of me sitting in jail, it was literally just continuances of court dates. Oh, judge, we're not ready yet. I'm going on vacation. All the DA is going on vacation. All the judge is on vacation. Oh, we need more time. Oh, let's push it back. I will go to court thinking everything will be resolved every single time. And every time it was come back in two months, come back in three months, come back in a month, come back in four months. And really no really good explanation as to why other than everybody had other shit to do. So, yeah, we didn't know about the law. We didn't know when to start screaming. We didn't know who to scream to. We didn't have the money to scream. You got to have money. You can yell all you want to. Everybody in prison is innocent, technically. You know what I mean? So how long did it take before it went to trial one year? One year. And we didn't even go to trial. Because you're pleaded? I ended up pleading no contest to it. And I was forced into that deal from my lawyer. That woman again? The day of jury selection. That woman. I was supposed to go into court. She kept trying to get me to take deals that entire year. When I was in juvenile court, she wanted me to take a deal for juvenile life, which means you go to California Youth Authority, which is prison for youth under 18. Juvenile life is you serve up to the age of 25. And then you're released. Name years? Yeah. She wanted me to plea out to juvenile, to take juvenile life and go to CYA. And I said, no. I got tried as an adult. Then she, there was a deal. They offered me for 25 years. And then there was a deal for like 18 years. And then there was a deal for nine years again. And I'm saying no to everything. I'll go to my mom. I'm like, mom, they said 25. She's like, did you do it? I'm like, no. We fighting it. We fighting. We're not taking no deals. So we kept saying no. No, no. The day of jury selection we're going to try on. I mean, I mean they take me to court. I'm in the set. I'm in the tank waiting to get pulled out to go see the judge to select his jury. And instead they pulled me out and they pulled me into this interview room. I'm in this little tank. It's just like this, just with that glass in the middle, you know, free side, locked upside. My lawyer comes in, big smile on her face. She's hyped up, energetic. I'm thinking, oh, shit. There's some good news. What's going on? She's like, okay, look, I just talked to the DA. I just came up with this, this, this, this deal. I mean, this is a great deal. Brian, Brian, you got to take this. This is the deal you have to take. I'm like, what's going on? Okay, listen, this is the deal. If you plead no contest to one counter rape, just one count, that they will then get rid of all the other charges. You will go to Chino State Prison and during your stay, you will, you'll go for 90 days. It's going to call it a 90 day diagnostic or 90 day observation. You're going to stay in prison for 90 days. And during that 90 day stay, you're going to be eventually interviewed by a psychologist and a counselor who will determine on a ladder system whether you are to receive felony probation three years or six years in prison. And she said, Brian, I promise you, I guarantee you, you will get that favorable report. And after 90 days, you're going to get felony probation. You'll be out. You can go back to school. You get back to playing football. You get back on with your life. If you do not take this deal, you're going to walk into that courtroom and all they're going to see is a big black teenager. And you're going to be found guilty. They're going to find you guilty. You're facing 41 years to life. Now, I'm telling you that you're going to get felony probation after 90 days. I need to know what you want to do. And I'm sitting here going, first of all, I'm thinking, I'm in juvenile hall while this is all helping. I'm with the youth. I'm 17. First thing I heard was go to Chino State Prison. What the fuck? One of the most notorious prisons in the state of California. Hands down. You say Chino. People go, OK. You went to Chino. Respect. It's that kind of place. You're going to go to Chino for 90 days. What? And so I'm sitting here and I'm like, well, let me talk to my mom. I got every every deal to try bringing me. I'll talk to my mom. And she said, no, can't talk to your mom this time. Because I got to go in there and tell it. I got to tell the DA and judge what you want to do right now. You're an adult court. You got to make an adult decision by yourself. I need to know what you want to do right now. So she pressed me, pushed me up against the corner. And I sat there in tears for about maybe three or three, four minutes. I'm crying. I mean just flowing down my face and I'm feeling the defeat. This is it. I got to take this deal. I'm hearing what she's saying. She's putting it on thick. It makes sense. You know what I'm saying? I'm 17. I guess it should make sense. She's saying it. She's telling me I'm going to be found guilty. If I go in there, I'm big and black. She knows. She's a lawyer. And I'm crying. I'm saying, are you sure? And why? Is this the only way? And please let me talk to my mom. Brian, I need a decision. I need to go. I need to tell them what you want to do. Come on. What do you want to do? You want to go to trial and risk it all? Or you want to take the deal? So after a year of fighting the case, I took the deal. And I remember walking to that courtroom. My mom was in there. Family members there, some friends there. And everyone was thinking I'm coming out to select jury. And I went into that courtroom and the judge started laying out the grounds for me pleading no contest. I stood up in court. And I said, yes, your honor, I plead no contest. Which in law is basically saying you're guilty. You're not saying guilty. I'm pleading no contest. I'm choosing not to fight the case. I'm allowing you to impose whatever punishment you see fit for this supposed crime. I'm not going to fight it. And I just heard my mom breaking down and everybody is just confused and wondering what the hell is going on. And so I take the deal. And I remember being, like I said, I was in juvenile hall. I was 17 years old. I just got caught up in some shit in there. It was this crazy situation. I was in the hall for about a few months. And the day after my 18th birthday, I turned 18. It was so surreal, so weird how it all took place. My 18th birthday, I was in juvenile hall. I was in the hall. It was late night. My cell door opened up and one of the guards came in with a hostess cupcake and a candle in it. It was one of the cool guards, you know, always was, you know, there for me. He said, man, you handed me this little cupcake. And I was just like, you know, it was like big. I'd been locked up a year. Cupcake was everything, right? Eating this shit up. And I go to sleep. I wake up and the cell door opens up again. And they're like, hey, you're being transferred to Chino day after my 18th birthday. And they chain me up and the chains were different this time. You know, when you're in juvenile, just throw your little cuffs on in front. They take you where you need to go. And this time it was cuffs behind the back, chain around the waist, chain connected to the ankles. One chain going down the waist, ankles down to the legs. I'm shackled down. They redress me and put me in a different, different suit. And they take me to prison. And I mean, we can go crazy with stories on that. That bus ride was fucking insane. Talk about insane. A guy in a, they put you inside the bus. They had one man's cell, one man's cages inside those buses. There was this guy, 5150. He's crazy as shit. He's standing up in there, chained up. He's bashing his head against the gates. He's bleeding this shit. He's pulling his dick out. He's pissing through it, pissing through the gate trying to pee on people. He's freaking out. He's screaming everywhere. There's guys behind me. We're pulling up to Chino State Prison. Yeah, baby. I'm home. Oh yeah. I'm sitting there like, what the fuck? You know, I'm just taking it all in. You trying to keep that poker face. You trying to keep your, you know, just keep looking like, you know, you ain't scared of shit. I get the prison. They take me out the bus, strip me down naked. They, I mean, this is just totally different, you know, than juvenile hall. Strip me down completely naked, stripped everybody down naked. It was a room as big as this. What about 60 guys in it? Nekid. And they leave you naked until alphabetically they call you out one by one to process you in. At, you know, R&R reception and release. Banks keep walking up. Nekid, you've been in there with 60 dudes naked and they finally give you a bad role with some clothes in it. They start asking you all these questions. And I remember you were like, you want a PC? I was like, what's PC? Protective custody. You want a PC? I see your crime. I was like, what does that mean? I didn't even know what it meant. What does that mean? He's like, well, that means that, you know, basically you don't feel comfortable being on a, you know, general population. And, you know, you want to be, you know, separate. I was like, nah, I don't need that. I'm fine. And so they didn't put me on PC and they put, I'll go through this whole process. Anyways, 90 days of Chino start. I'm in there. I mean, I've seen, I've watched Riots. I watched, I go into the bathroom and brush my teeth. I see a dude in the corner of the shower stabbed up, bleed now. You just turn around and walk out like you didn't see it. You know, you two guys fighting on the yard, on the guards, shoots one of the guys in the back with the Mini 14 for not getting down. He's just starting to get exposed to a lot of crazy shit, you know. And so I'm thinking to myself, just get through the 90 days, just get through the 90 days. And I eventually get interviewed by the psychologists and the counselor. And they interview you one by one, not together. And literally walking out of both of those rooms, they both said the same thing. I don't know why the fuck you're here. I read your case file. This shit don't make no sense. I can see right through this case like you should not be here. The DNA, the inconsistency of the girl's statements, the lack of investigation into your case. It makes no sense. No priors, no record, no nothing. I don't know why you're here. And they said, you know, both of them. I'm going to recommend the lowest that I can recommend, which is the felony probation. I wish that I can do less. I wish that I can say you don't deserve any of it. Literally from each, from both of them, one by one. And I remember hearing that. And I'm just being so overjoyed to hear somebody finally in this situation that knows about law that's part of this whole system to finally break cold and go, you're innocent. And I didn't hear it for a whole year. Everybody act like, you know, just let it play its way out, play its way out. You'll be fine, you'll be fine. So to hear that was so rejoiceful. I remember during that 90 day stay in prison, we couldn't have any contact or phone calls with the outside world, no visits, no phone calls. Why? They shut it all down during the 90 day observation. It's kind of like, you know, you're in Chino and you don't get the, you're here on an observation, you're not here as a, as a full time resident. So you don't get the, I guess the benefits of a. Is there cameras inside the cells or anything when they're observing? Nothing. You just, you just don't get visits from, you just can't get a physical visit and you can't make phone calls. I don't know why it's like that. How is that, though, when you plead no contest, basically admitting your guilt? How does that then think of your mum? Because part of you would think, part of you probably thought, did I do it? Did you ever think that? Did I do it? Because everything turned against you? But you start thinking, maybe, possibly. But how is that when you plead it and your mum breaks your heart? Because then your mum and dad should, in life, should basically die for you. No matter what you fucking do. Listen, that's probably one of the worst things you can do, but you know what I mean? Like how hard is that for then your mum possibly getting question marks for maybe my son as a rapist? Did you feel that or the shows have your back? I never felt that for my mum. My mum is a strong Christian woman and she raised us in a church. You know, whether we wanted to be there or not. You're going to church, you're going to Sunday school and you're going to choir rehearsal. So we were at church three times a week. You know what I'm saying? And we never, you know, she never let girls come over to the house. She never let us, you know, go out on dates at night. She was very strict. We had a very strict household, you know. Right before I got locked up was the first time she ever let me throw a party. It was a Fourth of July party with girls. And I got locked up July 8th four days later. So I never, I think the only time she ever really questioned me was the first time we had ever talked about it. The first visit she came to see me at juvenile hall. That's when she really like looked at me and she was like, what the, you know, you didn't tell me everything. And after that it was like, we never, I don't, she never showed me that she ever felt that this was real. And I never sat, you know, it's funny. I never had the thoughts in my head of, damn, did I, did I do something? Did I do this? I never felt that. But what I, what I can tell you, I felt was my mind started to fuck with me in a way of, I started thinking that everybody has something to do with this. Even my mom has something to do with this. How is she letting this happen? How is she letting me stay in this jail for so long? How is my dad, you know, I'm, I'm, I'm questioning everybody now because the paranoia is setting in because the stress and the nervousness and the feeling of being alone and being taken away from the world and everything that you know to be true. And the only thing that's now, you know, here is you dealing with this situation and everyone around you that can't do anything about it. And you start to question, why can't you do anything about it? Why am I still in here? And so you start to, you start to, you know, really question everybody and question, you know, your lawyer, is she, is she snaking me, you know? And then you got to snap yourself out of that because, you know, none of those folks are, you know, my mom obviously had nothing to do with it. But it's just, I think it's just the mind game. So it takes your mind? It takes you to a, you know, you're in that cell and that cell will play with your mind the way that you never could imagine, you know? But no, I never, I never, I never got to a point where I knew where I felt like, I do this, I don't fuck that. Yeah, but you know what I'm saying is that sometimes the mind can play tricks because people are telling you that much, take deals, admit this, admit this, and then you eventually admit it, and then you could possibly question it, especially with all the pressures and the stresses. What happens then within the 90 days? So I got that favorable report and since I couldn't contact my mom anyway, I could write her a letter. I wrote this letter and I'm in the letter going, wow, we got it, we got the favorable report. I'm hitting it in big letters, all caps, exclamation marks, smiley faces. I'm coming home in a matter of this many days. We got it, here we go. I'm so happy. I'm taking my lemons and I'm trying to make lemonade. It's felony probation as this is that, but I'm getting out of jail. Like I'm getting out of this. I'll take that at this point. And so I'm very happy to get that report. I finished my 90 days, they sent me back to court. I go back to court and I get in front of the judge. And I presented the judge with a stack of character letters from, you know, ministers and family members and friends and teachers and just people who could speak on my behalf of who I am as a person. I'm in stack. I probably took you a day to read them. The judge goes, okay, I see you got some character letters. I'm going to go back in the chambers and read these real quick. And then I'll come right back. It came back about three to five minutes. And I knew it. He didn't read shit. I knew he didn't read shit. I was like, this dude went and took a piss real quick and came right back. I knew he didn't read anything. And he came back and he said, with the mother of the victim, like to get up and say a few words. And man, she got up and, you know, when you, I mean, you're a monster, you're this, you're that, you don't deserve this deal. You should be getting more time. You took advantage of my daughter. You took her innocence. You didn't give her a choice when she wanted to lose her virginity. You're evil. Yada, yada, yada. I mean, I'm fine. I got family in there. I got friends in there. I got everyone's in there. I got people I don't know in there, random people waiting for the next court. You know, their court case and it's just, ah, man. Oh, there's nothing like sitting there here or something like that. It's one thing I, you know, I always, one thing I used to think to myself when you think like, you know, when your mind plays tricks on yours. I always thought to myself like, I don't, you know, I've never committed a crime. I never want to be in jail. But fuck, I wish I was in here for at least something else. Like, you know, even if I did do it or didn't do it, like it would be, it would be a lot easier for me to deal with if it wasn't rape, if it wasn't having to be accused of something, like the worst fucking thing that you can do, you know, to be accused of that. And then to have someone be in your face looking at you, telling you this stuff and you can't say nothing, you can't defend yourself. You can't say, well, what about the DNA? What about this? You just got to sit there and take it. Why was she allowed to speak? Because it was sensing. And I guess the judge felt like a door is sensing that the mom should have a word. So this was after the 90 days. You're going for 90 days. You have a kinder assessed on things and then they sent you after the 90 days. To determine whether I'm getting that felony probation three years or six years. So she was saying you took her virginity? She said, oh, you took my daughter's, you know, her innocence, her virginity, you didn't give her a chance. I mean, every single thing you could think of, she's saying it to me. She finishes talking and she sits back down and the judge goes, thank you, I appreciate your words. I'm going to sentence you to six years. Straight up, just like that. And gave me a high term in six years. Didn't explain why. No reasoning, no justification. Like I said, I've never been locked up. No priors, no nothing. He gave me a higher term in six years and it was ordered up like he was in a drive-through at a fast food restaurant. It was that quick. And I remember my lawyer playing this, you know, at the time I believed her. When I got back to myself, I looked at it again, just played this whole thing of she was shocked. Oh my God! Those are pinned down. And you just hear everybody in there crying. I'm crying. Actually, I was crying. I had tears in my eyes. I'll be honest. When he says six years and they started giving you all the conditions, like once they give you the sentence, then they start saying this time is going to run and concurrent with the time served and yada yada yada. And they start talking all this sideways stuff and you'll be repping five years, failing probation, you'll be registered sex offender for the rest of your life. But do you understand? They give you all these yes, no yes, no yes, no questions. I remember smiling, man. I started laughing. I had a fucking freak out. I just was like, fuck. I was like, man. And the judge hit the thing, boom. And I just looked back at my mom and they're crying. I was like, I love y'all, man. This is crazy. And they just walked me out of the courtroom. All I could do was just laugh. I just laughed, man. After a year of fighting that case, a year of being in jail, no evidence, no DNA, six different stories, all everything you need to prove that I was innocent and no one gave a fuck about it. And the judge gave me the higher term of six years, not the failing probation, not just three years. Let me give you six years. 18 years old. I just laughed, man. Once I got out of the courtroom, that's when I started fucking crying. I got back into the holding cell and it's crazy because the holding cell, in LA County is fucking ruthless, right? When you're in jail, jail is ruthless. You're going to fight. I don't care who you are. You're going to fight. You're going to have some fights. You're going to be in riots. You're going to get tested. Somebody going to test you. It's just how it is in there. And one of the scariest places to be is in the holding cell at the courthouse because you're in there with potentially enemies from the same neighborhood. You're in there with the person that you're going against in court, whatever. So a lot of times, dudes get smashed in that holding cell at the court office. So a lot of guys get to court and that tank's kind of quiet because everybody's in there like, you know, wondering like it's a shit going to pop off. So every time I went to court, I was always kind of nervous. I'd have beef with nobody, but there was always that fear of someone knowing my case or what I was in there for. And, you know, anything could happen at any moment. I was always on guard. I was not on any kind of fucking guard after he gave me the sentence. I remember going back to that holding cell. All of the dudes were in there. And I went in there and I sat down and I was just gone. And I was just, I had tears in my eye. My legs were tapping. My hands were shaking. I'm like, feeling like I'm about to pass out. And all I could think about was trying to add up how much time I had left. I was just like, all right, man. I've been in for a year and they said six years. I got to do 85% of that. I carried two and then three for five years, two months. I got to do four more years. Four years and two more months to go. And I just sat there. And I remember telling the dude, there was this one guy, I didn't even know him. He said, what'd they do, man? They must have sentenced you. What happened? And I was like, he gave me six years. He was like, oh shit, man, that ain't too bad. And I just sat there and I'm just like, this world is fucking great. Like I'm just thinking like, where am I? This shit just don't make sense, man. And I have four more years to go. And all that was fucked. My lawyer was like, we're going to fix this. I'm going to file a motion for remodification of sentencing. This is outrageous. We're going to fix this, don't you worry. And I got sent back to prison and now I'm sentenced. So now I'm going through the process of when you go through they call it a supporting system, basically to determine on what level of security, of maximum security, of minimum security you should go on. And while I'm in there waiting to be told where I'm going to go, I get a letter in the mail from my lawyer. Hey Brian, how are you doing? Hope you're okay. I'm working on your remodification of sentencing. I feel good about it, but in order for us to do this, you need to have an appellate attorney to help you with this. We've got an appellate attorney in our office who's going to help. So I need you to sign this form that's going to release me as your lawyer and then we're going to bring this guy on to help you remodify your sentencing. I signed the paperwork, sent it back out and she disappeared. To this day, I never heard from that lawyer again. My mom never heard from her. She's a judge in LA. She's a judge to this day right now. My mom never heard from her again. I never heard from her again. Her office ended up closing, number ended up shutting off. I guess she became a judge. The appellate attorney that she said was going to take over. I don't know who this person is. Never met him, never talked to him. It was over. It was it. And we were stuck. So when you say I went to screaming and yelling for help, or trying to tell who, that was it. My mom sold the house, sold the car, gave up all she had for this lawyer. She was done. She was cooked and had nothing else. Don't walk around the conspiracy route, but what do you think of people getting sacrificed for their own gain? What do you mean? That people get through under the bus. Give me a ham, ham, ham. Secret handshake society. Where you get hip and motion, but we need something from you, where people are getting used. People's lives are getting destroyed for their own wicked games of whatever society they're in. I've had the unfortunate opportunity to see the worst in the human spirit. And I've had the opportunity to see some of the best. And I just can't fathom the idea of taking on the responsibility of, or telling someone that you're taking on the responsibility of trying to protect their freedom. But during that, you see an opportunity for your own personal gain. And that personal gain outweighs the work at hand, the promise that you've made, the commitments that you've put in front of you. You know, I'm all for winning. At the hands of someone losing their entire life and their future. At the hands of a family being crumbled. At the hands of a mother losing her son. I just can't understand how people could have that in them. They could sleep at night, wake up and just go on about their day. Knowing that they're taking people's money and doing the exact opposite of what you said you would do. I know that it exists. I've experienced it. My lawyer never wanted to fight my case. Never went to the crime scene. Never interviewed any of the people. Never talked to me and really asked me all the questions that she should ask me. And yeah, she's a judge now. She's a judge, man. I haven't talked to her. I haven't seen her face. I don't know, you know, I think there was a point in time where my story was on 60 Minutes when I was initially exonerated. And 60 Minutes made many attempts to try to contact her and get her side of story and get her involved. And she basically denied it. I think that she made some excuse about attorney, client, privilege. And I was like, fuck, I'll give you all the privilege you want. Come on, tell us what happened. You know, and just disappeared basically. But I mean, we gave her a bunch of sentimental stuff. All that recruiting letter stuff that I was telling you that I was getting from... I told my mom to round up as much recruitment mail that she could to show the judge. And to give it to the lawyer. The lawyer never gave it to the judge and we never got it back. So all of my recruiting letters to this day are gone. I don't have none of that stuff as memories of my past of football. But yeah, man, people were fucking sick. And I mean, if you would have asked me about this years ago, I would have never believed that it could happen. You asked me about it today, I'm very jaded and I'm fully aware of how sick and cruel people can be. I've seen it, I've seen the worst of people. What was the most part about it? You know, it's really hard. I've had so many bad experiences. I went through so much. I went through a lot. I've been able to process it and I'm able to talk about a lot of it now, the spaces I don't talk about, those things I don't talk about. I think the worst part of it all is the waiting game, the unknowingness of what's going to happen to you when you fight in that case. I think being in limbo is the hardest thing of it all. Serving a sentence for something you didn't do is horrible, it's bad, prison's horrible, prison's bad, fighting the conditions that I can give you stories for days, five years worth of stories. But I think what hurts the most is being in prison or being in jail for something you didn't do and having to show up in front of the judge every single day and you have this hope. You've been praying to God, you've been overloading prayer that this all is removed from your life and every time you show up it gets worse. It gets worse, it gets worse, it gets worse. It gets worse up into a point where you're not going home. I think that, to me, was the worst experience. Just having your heart ripped out of your chest every fucking time you go to court and you think that they're going to do the right thing. You think that someone's going to step forward and say the right thing or do the right thing. It just doesn't happen. You lose a sense of trust in humans. You lose trust, you lose belief, you lose faith in people. I don't think I could put one thing over the other, but if I had to, it would be the whole process of fighting the case. Something I didn't do. How was that feeling though? The worst thing you came in prison for was a computer failure rape. Did people know what you were in for? Did they make the media or anything? When I was in juvenile hall, what you're in there for is pretty much wide open. Juvenile hall is very relaxed. The guards have a clipboard with your name and it literally has the case next to it. Nales said the clipboard on the table and walk away. We get the clipboard, we looking at it and we talking, you ain't here for this. At that level, everyone knows everything. When you get to prison in California, it changes and it's different by the race of your color. If you're Hispanic or you're white, they're going to want to see your paperwork from the fucking gate before you get into the prison. There's somebody who's up on me. Let me see it. They won't know what you're in there for. For blacks in prison in California, at least during my time when I was there, it was more of a don't ask, don't tell. As long as you're not drawing attention to yourself, we won't really worry about what you're in here for unless you got a high profile case or unless someone does know you and they come and bring it up to everybody else and we can't ignore it and we got to deal with it. For me, because my paperwork was not asked for, I actually created a whole different story about why I was in jail. If I was ever asked, I was telling people, I was in there for a home invasion that a buddy of mine committed. It was a whole story. A friend of mine committed a home invasion on a guy that we all knew. The guy knew who did it and he threw a bunch of names into the pot. I was one of those names. I took the rap from a homeboy, I'm here now. That was my story. Only one time, there was one occasion, I was locked up probably, there was three years into my five year sentence and when you're in prison in California, you got to roll with somebody, you can't roll a solo. So even if you're not a gang member, then you're going to break you down to your city. So when you come in there, they press you real hard. Someone's going to run up on you, it's like real aggressive. If you're not from somewhere, what city are you from? Loan Beach. Then you got to answer to the people from Loan Beach. They deal with you. I had, I want to say connections, but before I got to prison, I already knew, I was born and raised in Loan Beach. Loan Beach is the hood, it's the ghetto, it's gang related. I had family members, friends of family members that were in prison. So I was able to kind of reach out to a few people before I had even got there to let them know that this was happening and I was showing up. So by the time I got to prison, I actually had a few people that were already aware of who I was, but in my favor, looking out and stuff like that. On one occasion, I was going to say it was three years in, I was on a maximum security, it was on a level three, and there was a guy that was part of the Loan Beach car and he was going home, he was paroling. And the day before he paroled, I was in my cell doing some shit. My cell door opened up and he walked in and he closed the cell door behind him and I'm like, what's going, he was my guy, he was cool. We ate together, we rapped together, we played dominoes together, so he was cool. He closed the cell door and he said, man, I just want you to know this whole time, I know what you're in here for. I know your situation. And I think it's pretty fucked up that you've been walking around here and you're not letting people know what the situation is because that can get us all in the wreck that we got you with us, we carrying you around and you got this on your jacket. I already asked a few people, a few other people about you on the streets, that your shit is bullshit and that you shouldn't be in there and that that whole thing was a setup. So I understand, but I just want you to know if I was somebody else and somebody else found this out, this shit could have went a whole different way. Now he's basically face to face with me telling me this. And when he told me, I wasn't worried about him. He was half my size. Every when down in there I would have fucking destroyed him. There was no problem. I was just like, I'm not going to be able to make it a word and make it something crazier. That was the only time I was ever kind of pressed about what I was in there for, other than that. Nobody really asked me. There was one other instance where I could have, where my situation could have been really bad, but I really think that my higher power, I'm speaking on God, there were really a lot of instances where there was divine intervention taking place in my life. I'm a firm believer. I'm telling you, when I got to Chino State Prison, they put me in this dorm, this gymnasium that had been converted into a dorm. This big ass basketball gym. They had three-tier bunks, two-tier bunks, which means bunk beds was three levels. You know what I mean? They had a tower up at the top with many 14 of guard up there 24-7. There was spray paint on the walls that says there will be no warning shots. They're going to shoot, you start fighting, they're just going to let it off. When I got into this dorm, I had no idea that they hand the paperwork over to inmates who are controlling the intake of the dorm to give all the jobs to the inmates. So I'm in there, I'm fixing my bed up. I'm guys walking up to me, talking to me and stuff like that. I'm just getting to prison for the first time. I don't know what prison is like. As I'm fixing my bed, this dude walks up to me and he's like, what's up, bro? What's going on? He's like, I want to say his name out there, but he's like, you know X. He's like, yeah, it's my crying me. It's my cousin. The guy he was referring to, we were in juvenile hall together. We went to high school together. He was one of my homeboys for many years. He went to prison for a whole lot of time and he was somewhere else. They were crying me for an attempted murder, carjacking, some other shit like that. He was like, yeah man, that's my crying my cousin. He told me about you bro, don't trip me. He's like, you know what else? I want to tell you something. I take care of all our paperwork up front and I got yours and I went on and pushed it and processed it for you so nobody going to see that. And I'm thinking to myself had all these people in prison that could be doing the paperwork that could be processing people in that happened to be somebody who knew me and who really knew what the situation was. It could have been totally different. I could have been blindsided easily. Easily. I think I mentioned it. Worst thing I ever seen in prison was going to the enchino. Going to the bathroom and brushing my teeth in the morning. Little towel throwing over my shoulder. Two brushing in my ear. Got my toothpaste in my hands. Some soap bars and walking to the thing. I'm walking to the bathroom. I walk in there. As soon as I walk in I look to my left. The showers are right here. The sinks are over here and they're split by a wall. I look over and right over the bottom and I'm sitting there in the corner. Stabbed up. You see a drain of blood going to the drains. He's out. He just turned around and walked the fuck about it. He just turned around and you walk out and you get on your bunk. No, he wasn't there. But he was airlifted out. He was airlifted out. But you literally you can't show anything. You just walk out and then you just start seeing everybody one by one sitting on their bunks. Everybody's kind of sitting down and cleared out the way that something's going on. I think that was one of the worst situations. Other than that, the inhumane experiences dealing with guards and searches and those 3AM searches where they come in and busting up the shit and stripping your neck and making you sit on infested floors without clothes on and making you be in rooms with a hundred guys in a room that could probably only fit 60. You're just waiting to be let out while they're searching everything. You know, riots, I've been to riots. I've been stabbed in riots. Fights, I had a lot of fights. You kind of get used to that stuff. I would definitely say just the wide-eyed awakening of how serious, how violent prison can be, especially only being there for a few weeks. I was in Chino on a 90-day observation watching the dude get airlifted out. So you're running there six years. Obviously before people go, a president can't wait to get out. How was your mindset with it coming out? No football career, convicted rapist. How was your mindset going out? Were you glad to get out or were you just scared of the unknown? Determined. Absolutely determined. When I was in prison, I went through many different phases. My first phase was rage. After I was sentenced, I just said fuck it. I was mad. I was angry at the world. Angry at every single person I could think of. A little bit of anger to my family. Everybody. I just had this chip on my shoulder. I had four years to go. So I was just very, very angry. After a few months, I felt like I had this epiphany, this eye-opening experience in my life where they kind of tried to portray it in the film. I was in my cell one day and there was this tiny little window. I was in my cell one day and they gave me these tiny little windows in there. I remember the window light was just kind of peering through real strong. So I walked over to the window and the lights hitting the sun just hit me in the face. I'm sitting there just kind of looking over my life in my mind and a voice just started talking to me. It just says, the voice was like, you got to stop trying to be in control over things you can't control. And I'm not in control over the things that I'm fighting to be in control of. This entire time I've been trying to change things that I could not change. And I had to realize that what I was doing to myself with the rage and the anger, I was killing myself and I was destroying myself. Doing the job for the people that put me behind bars. Living how I was living. Thinking the way that I was thinking. And just it was weird. It was kind of a turn of events for me where I, it was almost like a deep breath and a change of mind of let me start focusing on what I can control. In a very uncontrolled situation. And what I can control is my emotions first and foremost. How I think about a situation. How I allow a situation to affect me. And what I choose to do as a response to the situation. All three of those were always in my control. What was going on in my life may have been uncontrolled. But the emotion that I was applying to it was always in my control. And I was applying all the wrong emotions in turn was breaking me down inside. Changing me as a person. Changing my spirit. Changing my beliefs. Changing my beliefs and God and people and everything. And I had to let that go. Not only let that go, but I had to let go of the past. Of things that I was hanging on to so much that I couldn't wait to get back to because I had so much time to get through. And the more I focus on what was and what no longer is, it was literally just driving me crazy. I would have never made it out of there. I would never, I would start I mean I was getting involved in this shit in there that I shouldn't have got involved in. And it was just because it was just a whatever mentality. But I had this epiphany of wanting more for myself realizing that if there was anything that was going to change, it would have to start with me first and the change was going to come from me. Will you do that? Never. No. I never had an idea if I didn't want to be here anymore physically like I wanted to in my life. And that that in no offense to anybody who's ever experienced those emotions I've done life coaching with folks who have and who are dealing with those types of thoughts and feelings. But me personally I never thought about that. I never and I don't know if it was just how I was raised with my mom and my family I don't know if it was the competitiveness of sports and football that taught me to you know get hit and get the fuck back up and keep going but there was always this drive in me that kept trying to figure out the puzzle. I was more fascinated with trying to figure it out than not figure out at all. I never I'm too afraid to try to kill myself. I couldn't do it. That's not something I can do. I don't think I can ever do some shit like that. But I did I did give really off course in my life because of what I went through because of what I was experiencing. I met my mentor when I was in juvenile hall fighting the case. A mentor was this teacher at the juvenile hall and I can't even tell you what subject he taught because you go into his class and his focus was discovering who the real you is thinking outside of the box challenging my mind in ways that had never been challenged before. He would give me literature to read and different things to consider and think about and different ways to work on my spirituality and things of that nature. It's crazy because the first 14 days that I was incarcerated I didn't come out of myself I lost 14 pounds I wasn't eating the food I got real sick they took me to the infirmary a few times I wasn't interacting with anybody I wasn't talking to anybody and they didn't know what to do with me One day my cell door opened up this dude came in he wasn't one of the guards he was in plain clothes he had these glasses on straight back upright and he was very confident you could just feel his energy just a different energy that he walked into the room my cell and he surveyed the cell he looked at me and looked me up and down he didn't say anything and I'm just looking at this man and he came and he sat next to me on the bed put his hands in his laps like this and he looked at me and he looked up and down and then finally he spoke he said you know a young man I don't know what it is you're going through but you're going to have to let this go and I remember instantly hearing this how can I let this go what are you talking about I'm in the mist of the storm and here's this random guy coming into my cell saying you got to let it go I didn't understand what he meant by that but at the same time there was something internally within me that I felt connected to what he said I begin to cry and I start sobbing there was something that resonated with what he said I just didn't understand it in my mind yet what he was saying later I would start working with him day in and day out on just my spirituality on my emotions on you know self-discovery, self-realisation self-love forgiveness and all these different things of that nature and it really helped me as I was fighting my case I felt like he was empowering me building me up with tools of survival and there was a point in time where I felt like what he was doing to me was preparing for me to get out of prison, fight this case win and then have this better life and I later realised that he was actually preparing for me to go to prison he was preparing me to be prepared for the worst and when I got sentenced I lost sight of all of that and here's another divine intervention I feel like a higher power was at work when I got sentenced I went into a rage and I just let go of everything that he taught me and I kid you not one day I was in jail and I got a letter in the mail from him that was in prison and he said I just wanted to write you because there's something in my mind that's telling me that you've fallen off course from your teachings you've fallen off from where we left off and I just wanted to I wanted to write you and to remind you of who you are where you are and what you can do in this moment and it was kind of this it was at the right time it was almost too timely it was weird to get that letter and reading it while angry and just kind of losing all the anger and just having this self-reflective moment but that really helped me and then like I said I had this epiphany and that really got me on my focus so right after that I just started getting into what I could control so I started reading like crazy I got into a lot of psychology and sociology I got into a lot of Afro-Syntricity studies under Moli Fikite Asante I got into I read the dictionary probably three or four times I read the source three or four times I would take the dictionary and take words out of them and one by one write them down and then write the definition I had self-taught I learned how to speak I would go out into the yard in prison and start using big ass words on people and they didn't know what the hell I was saying but it I took the time to not sit in anger but to work harder for me than anybody else could work harder for me because I know at the end of the day what I want from me nobody else could ever want it from me more than what I want so in order for me to get it I had to be fully engaged and fully about that life which was getting back home becoming free moving on with my life and the best way possible rising above the accusations being better than what I was being labeled and accused of and ultimately discovering the spiritual side of me my journey towards enlightenment What was it like getting out? Very naive I was very naive right before I parole from prison I reached out to my old high school football coach who was now the head coach for a junior college and I told him that when I got out of prison I wanted to play football still and he said well I'm coaching at this little JC you know we love to have you and he actually got involved in enrolling me into college before I even got out of prison he sent me to playbook in prison so I'm sitting there reading football playbooks and you know I'm getting filling all the paperwork to get enrolled and I got out of prison I think on a Wednesday August 29th 2007 it could be Wednesday but I know that weekend I had a football game a few days out of prison and you talk about a fucking bad out of hell I was trying to kill people on that field I mean everything there's five years of pent up everything now I got a helmet on with some shoulder pads I'm flying around hitting people but the naive part was I thought that what I was going to do was get out of prison, get into school and just try and move forward as if you know the worst was behind me I got out of prison and I did exactly that and within a couple months California implemented a new law that required all 290 registrants which are sex offenders to wear a GPS on their ankle for the duration of their porosins I had a maximum porosins of five years so they within a few months of being out they fitted me with this giant ankle bracelet and now I had a curfew I couldn't live within 2000 feet of any school or park I had to register as a sex offender wherever I lived I couldn't play football because it could get tampered or pulled or broken and I would be an automatic violation of parole I couldn't be on a school campus there's none of that type of stuff so it really my life I used to have these waves where as soon as I thought that the worst was over it hit me again I'm surprised they even gave you a chance though by being a convicted rapist that's a good coach that that he believed in you no matter what you say at that point you know yourself you've admitted that people thinking fucking deserves it nobody that I know of believed this story about what happened no one believed it and I can't speak for everybody in my city but what I can say is that growing up in the 90s in the early 2000s as a young teen in my neighborhood you never heard about rape nobody was taking advantage of females the concept of rape was not in our black neighborhood no one was trying to take anything from anybody and then for me to be accused of it um it didn't make sense who was making the accusation really didn't make sense everyone knew it was bullshit everybody knew it was bullshit it didn't make sense and then all the stories started coming out while I was locked up and where it is she going around saying it never happened where it is they got this money from the lawsuit now they buying cars and buying clothes and they shopping sprees doing this and doing that and speaking down on you all these little things start coming out and so everyone is learning over time when did you find out they got the money 1.5 million I didn't find out until the deposition after the deposition I think shortly after they settled and I heard from that lawyer because that lawyer for the school district and he wasn't even supposed to do this he wasn't supposed to stay in touch with me he wasn't supposed to do none of it but he took my calls I called him from prison he answered my calls from his law firm I had questions about legal stuff he'd answer them he let me know that they settled and that this was happening, that this was going on he really he was like he was god he really opened my eyes to what was really going on behind my back that I didn't know that's what I learned from him that they settled for 1.5 million and what you can throw your mind down knowing that you're innocent, you've lost your football career your mum's been basically homeless by selling her house and her car to try and get you out of prison falsely accused by a couple of evil bastards the mum seems as if she was involved because she's seen the pound signs for me I'll say how it is, fuck them both, do you know what I'm saying so how is that though everything but they've gained everything you know I didn't really when I found out about her receiving the the settlement I was already back on my spiritual journey and I was already not allowed trying my best not to allow things to affect me but to be in control of my emotions and how I was allowing things to affect me I don't think I really got too angry about that because at that point nothing was a surprise you know nothing was a surprise to me anymore, you could have said yeah man and now she she got a house in clouds and living in space and yeah it makes sense they put me in jail for something I didn't do it took away my whole life and again it makes sense you know I think I was more so disappointed in the fact that I was learning so much about my case that I didn't know and how neglectful my lawyer actually was that hurt me tremendously that we put so much faith and trust into somebody and they literally just fucked us over you know I mean so everything else was just kind of like icing on the cake oh she got 1.5 million okay well makes sense why not seems like a lot of money as well why 1.5 million why was it 1 million I guess they were suing for a lot more and because my lawyer had neglected to work with the lawyers of the school district they had no case because they couldn't get in touch with me they couldn't get a hold of me and they couldn't get a hold of case files or anything because she was the attorney so they literally had nothing to go on other than coming to depose me later on after I had already been sentenced you know what good is a deposition from a person who's been sentenced for a crime they really don't mean a shit so you get out of prison after 6 years you lose your football career again you're on tag for 5 years but your life takes a mad dramatic turn like you say you talk about guidance and faith we'll touch it on later about how why you went through this but your life kinda goes mad again you're probably just getting on with your life fuck it you can't play football you need to do something you seem like a man who always finds something to replace whatever he's going through to try and kick on even though you're probably defeated at a time when you were angry and full of violence and rage which is understandable but your life kinda went mad again because you got a Facebook request from your accuser what you thinking then was that 10, 11 years? not only did I get that Facebook request but it was during a period of my life where my life was just spiraling down and down and down prison is I don't wish prison on anybody I think they experienced especially a California prison and I've never been in jail nowhere else so I can't speak on it but from my personal experience I wouldn't wish it on anybody but there is something about being back in the real world and being still being accused as a sex offender being on a registry list as a register sex offender having a skeleton in your closet of that magnitude that nobody else has I couldn't find work I couldn't find a job no one wanted to hire me if they did want to hire me they would have to deal with the fact that I was on parole with a GPS anchor a GPS monitoring device on my ankle and a parole officer that's gonna come visit the place every now and then no one wanted to deal with that so it was it was it was tough when how can I say this when when she contacted me on Facebook I was I was broke borderline homeless if it wasn't for a girl that I was dating at the time I'd have nothing I was living with her she was basically footing the bill for everything very very hard thing to deal with if you consider yourself to be a man of one that understands the role of being a provider to be in a role reversed situation was so hard but yeah I was going through every single negative thing that you could think of at that time as far as not having work as far as being a registered sex offender as far as having no social life as far as having no experiences as far as losing 10 years of your life so many different things so my life was on just but my life was probably at that time that I got that request was at the lowest it could be and I was at home looking for a job online I was on all the different job sites still trying to find work after three years of being on parole I think it was three years or four years of being on parole still trying to find work and I get bored I'm like fuck you know I'm filling out these applications I'm bored let me take a break and I decided to get on Facebook I remember at this time Facebook Facebook was huge my space was still around there was no Twitter and there was no Instagram and all this other stuff but Facebook was a thing so I got on Facebook and when I opened up the site I had a friend request and I clicked the box and the thing drops down and it was her face it was her name and I remember just slamming the laptop down and I literally threw it across the road and that felt like I touched something I shouldn't touch I slammed it and I threw it across the thing and I just sat there staring out the window I was sitting at the edge of my bed I remember like it was yesterday I sat at the edge of the bed and I'm staring out the window and I must have sat there frozen for several minutes replaying my entire experience in jail flashbacks I mean it's just the craziest flashbacks and my heart's racing I'm freaking out and then it hit me and I was like wait a minute it's got to be somebody playing a fucking sick joke it can't be her this has to be somebody playing a joke so I ran and got the laptop back I popped it back open and I'm looking at the page and so I said you know what let me send a message and I said why would you friend request me exact words just to see what this person would say could you point a present for that because you're supposed to have yes automatic violation of your parole you're never supposed to come in contact with your supposed victim automatic violation so I sent the message back thinking it wasn't her why would you friend request me just to see what the response was and immediately within seconds the response came back I was hoping we could let bygones be bygones I was looking at your pictures on Facebook and you've grown up a lot and you look good I don't know if you've seen my pictures if you think about me how do I look it would be nice if we could hang out and connect some time and now I really thought there was some bullshit I was like there ain't no way there ain't no way this is her no way no way so my next message was you called me I want to see who this is put my phone number there and few minutes my phone started ringing I stared at it for a bit and I answered it and it was her and she said hello and I was just sat there and saw it and I didn't say nothing for a few minutes and I'm just listening I'm in full paranoia mode I'm listening to the phone I'm listening to the background I'm trying to hear noises I'm trying to hear who else is on the phone is it a three way call is it my parole officer with her they trying to set me up put me back in prison so she's like hello hello and what's going on what is this she started flirting with me on the phone I was thinking about you I didn't know if you were on Facebook so I typed in your name and you popped up wow you're looking good and you've grown up have you seen my picture how you think I look let's hang out some time wherever you are I'd love to see you I don't have a car I'll catch the bus to come see you I can take a taxi or train let me know let's hang out and be fun I'm in silence I'm just sitting there I don't believe anything I don't think that I'll tell you the honest I thought she was trying to set me up to be killed maybe this is some setup where you try to get me somewhere and there's some dudes there or maybe you're trying to set me up to go back to jail with my parole officer so I'm thinking to myself you should hang this phone up but then there's this other part of me saying you gotta play chess and not checkers this is your opportunity to potentially shed light on what happened if you can get her to come forward then this is all done I start playing chess it's like alright I don't know about us hanging out right now but maybe we can connect some time and talk I went through a lot of shit and I really need help getting my life back you and I both know what happened was fucked up and her response was we can hang out and kick it some time maybe I think about helping you all these basically hinting at trying to have sex with me and I said well let me think about it I gotta really think about this this is a lot going on I'll get back to you I'll get off the phone and for the next few weeks she's texting me every single day every few hours texting hey what's up you're free what's going on and when are we going to hang out what day is this I'm getting these text messages from her every single day harassing me but to a point where it doesn't feel real it's like you really are trying to set me up for something and one day after me ignoring the text messages she sent me a message and said you know what it seems like you don't want to hang out so maybe I'm not going to help you fix your life if you don't want to hang out then I ain't going to help and that's when I knew I had to do something I'm like okay alright she's going to disappear I need to figure out something so I reached out to my homeboy and his dad had just became a private investigator and I was saying hey and I finally broke silence you know only me and the girl I was dating at the time knew what was going on I hadn't told my mom I hadn't told nobody that this girl was contacting me so I finally told him and he's like look bro my dad you know talk to him if anything you know he can get you in contact with somebody who can help you so he gets me on the phone with his dad I talked to his dad his dad was like well just have her come to the office the PI office and you know see if you can just get her to talk so I was like alright look how about this you texture come see me on my lunch break I'm at work you know my job where I work at and we can talk to him on my lunch break and we're trying to figure this out he's just okay I'll be there and to make a long story short she showed up the day that we had it all set up the private eye was there his wife was there and we basically set up his office to where you know there was his office had certain cameras and certain places but we start putting extras basically to kind of capture the whole thing and she showed up two days in a row showed up the first day and it was just me and her talking initially and it was mainly me expressing to her what I had been through what I had gone through what I had lost what I had experienced and the help that I needed and her response was just like well you know I went through things too you know like people were hating on me because I had all this money and I was buying all these cars and clothes and you know I had a lot of haters and you know the DA's office was trying to give me a go and see the psychologists and the counselors and all this different stuff and I just totally just oblivious to what all I had just said to her about my life and loss you know trying to match it with her experience with the 1.5 million dollars and the help that the district attorney's office was trying to get her mentally supposedly being taken advantage of all this was her hardship so I realized I wasn't getting anywhere with her on that front so I had to take it a different angle so now I'm talking about like who can we talk to and get involved into helping me get my life back and she's like well I don't want to talk to any police I'm not going to talk to any lawyers I'm not talking to nobody from a courtroom you know and I'm willing to help you you know however I can but I don't want to have to pay back all that money that they gave me because it's going to take a long time to pay it back you know and so I was like I'm thinking I'm frangically thinking I'm going alright would you talk to a private investigator you're not involved with anybody maybe he could just give us some advice on how to go about it and she was like alright yeah I'll talk to a PR that's cool she came back the next day now mind you all of this she's flirting right in my face I'm dealing with that I'm dealing with it poker face try my best not to fucking go off and tell her how I really feel every moment of it so she came back the next day and the PI the first time she came he was in a different room watching it on the monitor second time he was he uh she showed up she and I were in the office talking and then he acted as if he had just showed up to the office hey how you doing I'm a private investigator on YouTube you know he shows up he comes in he sits down and he basically starts questioning both of us and that questioning then led to just questioning her and kind of asking her those hard hitting questions about did it happen and this this and that and she admitted to it it never happened she actually lost she said she lost her virginity after this whole thing took place she said that we were just being young and having fun and being dumb and one thing led to another and you know she made a she says I guess she made up a lie and and then she blames it on the DA that the DA was asking her questions and then the DA was trying to get more out of her and all this other stuff it's all on YouTube her videos you can find it on YouTube you know it's there the recantation video but essentially he was successful at getting her on tape admitting that it never happened it never took place and then a lot of truth to other things that even further proved that she made up the lie and uh I remember man this is a side piece we she left that she left the office and I mean when I talk about rejoising I was fucking crying I'm rejoising we got this thing on tape the private eye he's crying his wife is crying we all in there hugging each other he's so hyped up he yngst the USB out of the computer before it finished downloading he basically destroyed the the USB so he's like oh he didn't finish downloading he puts it back in nothing shows up he takes it out he puts it back in nothing shows up I'm sitting there watching from behind him and I'm just like and he's sitting there like click click click click click click and he just stops he goes I'm so sorry and I'm like no no you gotta be kidding me I'm pushing him out the way I'm pushing it in click click click his wife is crying the footage is gone he's crying he's breaking down and then he's like he's like calm down we gotta figure this out and we get in touch with this what do you call those people for me to repair USB stuff I don't know so we drive all the way to the city this is a little city somewhere and he drops it off to this guy and we're in a waiting game for like 6 days 6-7 days finally the guy calls him back he was able to recover 60% of the drive luckily that's 60% is all the recantation most of the first day was gone which was me telling her about what I was going through and what I had experienced there's pieces of it that was still there but all that was gone the second day was everything that we needed he was able to recover that and I never showed him I never told him about that I've always just never added that piece because I don't know man because people never ask they always ask about the specifics of the case they never really get into the conversation of my experience no one asked me about prison no one asked me about what life was like and there's always just the story but yeah man I almost lost it I lost it all so I get this to make a long story short we recover it 60% I get it I take it from him give me this shit I got it and now I'm on this frantic search for an attorney who's going to help me appeal this case I'm digging I'm filing emailing everybody I'm calling everybody and everybody's like ignoring it not taking it serious no one will take the calls no one will answer I had reached out to an organization called the California Innocence Project now I reached out to them initially while I was in prison when I got my case file from the school district attorney I had filed my own appeal I went back like so basically because we didn't have a lawyer can you appeal if you've met it at all absolutely so you can start feel even if you've met it you go you file what's called a writ of habeas corpus which is challenging the evidence of your of your case with some newly discovered evidence that wasn't presented in court before so I went back I didn't have a lawyer so I we had a legal law library in the prison so I literally spent the next few months becoming a lawyer while I was in there learning laws you know study in my case stand up late nights research and stuff you know everybody's on a yard I'm sneaking to my room my my cell and I'm digging through the paperwork when no one was around and I'm learning I'm learning I'm asking the legal guys in the law library questions that like loosely kind of you know not letting you know what I'm looking for but trying to figure out this and figure out that and I I put together on my own a valid solid writ of habeas corpus that was actually approved by the courts I went back to court to basically contest the writ of habeas corpus and more corruption took place while I was there I got pulled into the court office now mind you are you're supposed to they gave me a court appointed attorney because I couldn't afford one that court appointed attorney was supposed to see me prior to going to court to contest the writ of habeas corpus I never saw this lord he never showed up I didn't see him until I was in the courtroom in front of the judge before the judge came out he goes hey I'm your attorney I'm inside the box I'm like I where you been he was like hey I just want to let you know if the judge approves this and you know you do win your writ of habeas corpus they're basically going to throw out your conviction they're going to retry you all over again you're going to give you a bell again you're going to stay in jail and they're going to treat it all over again you're going to be facing life all over again it's not as easy as you think that's not true that's not true he fed that to me it wasn't true I don't know I never saw the guy he shows up he whispers this in my ear he tells me this I had months left on my sentence I was out in probably less than a year and I'm sitting here listening to this guy say this the judge walks in and he goes alright so why aren't we here today Mr Banks I stood up in the box and said your honor I'd like to withdraw my writ of habeas corpus I apologize for wasting the court's time please throw this out and I would like to finish off the rest of my sentence and go home and he said okay grant it that was it and I did not know that wasn't true what's true is they can try to refile more than likely they will try and refile on you but that doesn't mean that all these same rules apply the way that he tried to make it seem it's different I would have been able to go home I would have paroled the footage didn't exist at this time this was when I first filed my own appeal this was probably four years into my five year sentence maybe four and a half years into my five year sentence I filed my first appeal on my own and I threw it out and I paroled home and that's when all the other stuff started so that was when you were unpleasant you tried to do it all yourself I'm thinking you've got the footage and you've tried to get money I filed my writ of habeas corpus on the fact that my lawyer never used the DNA so technically that was newly discovered evidence because it wasn't used in the court's eyes it's technically not newly discovered evidence because it did exist my lawyer just did not use it but it was enough for my writ to be heard in front of court so once I threw that out after hearing this guy tell me that he disappears the writ of habeas corpus disappears I go back to jail and our prison and finish my sentence and during that time I had reached out to the California Innocence Project they turned down my case because there was no evidence that they could use to get me back in court now fast forward I have this video and after reaching out to so many different attorneys I reach out to them once more and I said please if you just watched the video you'll see for yourself and there's a lady in the office at the California Innocence Project at the time her name was Kim Hernandez she was the project coordinator she wasn't an attorney she was the person that was like handling the business side of things she answered the call and she said okay I'll meet you to look at the video and I met the lawyers with me she was nice here I was risking my freedom again because they were all the way in San Diego I was in LA I couldn't leave LA County as a parole condition so I lied to my parole officer I said hey I got this job interview but the headquarters for the job is in San Diego I need to go get interviewed he gave me a pass to drive out so I actually didn't even go to San Diego they met me halfway in the city somewhere even though she admitted it could you have still got in trouble because you leave it in her presence how did that balance out to make a long story short I showed them the video they took on my case and when they took on my case immediately they told me hey you know just because you have this video don't mean that you're going to get your life back because she could have said she was threatened well she did all of that but even more the judge could have said I don't like the way you guys went about getting this video I don't like the way you went about getting the recantation can you record you can record if the person is has been given the knowledge that recording is taking place in the vicinity which we made sure we put signs all over the office outside the office this will be recorded inside the room she was sitting in there were walls and signs everywhere we did it on purpose we made that video not admissible which would have left me with no evidence which would have put me back to square one so we had to play more chess and not checkers we're still in contact with her at this time just to keep her sweet no once she came forward I shut the shit down it was over I didn't need to talk to her at all about anything there was no reason for me to even talk to her I got her on tape admitting you lied so before we took it to the judge what we decided to do was take it to the media if we put it out there to the world then there's no way that the courts could sweep this under the rug no matter what the technicalities are because the video is so damaging for her because she's literally admitting to everything while laughing about it you know so we went to the media which was basically me showing the world that I came in contact with the supposed victim which is an automatic violation of my parole and my parole officer because he sent me to prison for it so we put together this big interview, this big scoop it was one of the big news networks in LA and the reporter his name is Randy Page God bless him he stuck with me through the whole process of getting my case turned over but we put it out there and literally that night phone rang it was my parole officer just saw your ass on TV come to my office in the morning going to jail I get to the office in the morning he's hot, he's going off this and that he's going off, I'm thinking I'm about to go to jail and at the end of his rant he's like you're lucky my boss and these people saw it too and they believe you so what we gonna do is what they told me to do is to basically remodify your parole conditions that state you can't come into contact with the supposed victim at all unless it's court related and so they basically created a loophole for me the parole office did that kept me from going back to jail for coming in contact with her basically us going to the media helped me more in the situation than anything because it put everybody in a position where they couldn't ignore what they saw couldn't ignore it because you could have got that by doing it it would have been an outcry it would have been a public outcry they sent me to jail after that the man got a video of the girl saying she didn't do it and you sent the man back to prison for it you know it would have been a crazy outcry so it worked in our favor is that the first time you'd felt as if life was starting to work in your favor again first time well getting the video the recantation I was like I got that then when the media thing worked in our favor that was huge too because what happened after that was once it went to the media my lawyers the California Innocence project were able to do something that had never happened before and I don't think I don't know if it has happened since the DA agreed to listen to me without any court being involved my lawyer was at a the head of the Innocence project was at another one of their cases that they were fighting and he noticed that the lead the lead district attorney was there watching in one of his junior DA's fight the case he was in the audience when the case was over my lawyer went to him and said I got this kid named Brian Banks he's got this video, it's been on the news if you just listen to him and he agreed if he can show up within a few hours I'll sit and talk with him he calls me and he's like put on some nice get to the fucking court office right now so I get dressed, I smash over to the court office and I literally sat in the office with my two lawyers the DA, the lead DA and the lead investigator for the DA's office and they interviewed me so they agreed to join and they joined investigation into my case which never happened and that joint investigation basically put the girl on a run she basically went into hiding they couldn't find her they were trained on and now you would think that so let me first say this she went into hiding the DA's office were trying to locate her not to help me but to help themselves if anything want their conviction to stick they don't want their conviction to be overturned so tracking her down and getting her back on the right track would be in their favor she's basically answering the phone telling the DA fuck you, catch me if you can I'm not coming to court, I'm not talking to nobody no they had to subpoena her they had to do all these different things basically threaten her freedom for her to show up eventually one of the court dates she showed up they interviewed her and at the end of that interview they realized that she had made everything up and it was a total lie and that's what that's what ultimately got me free I went to court May 24th 2012 and I had a feeling something good was going to happen we didn't know for sure but basically we went into the courtroom video to us on YouTube the judge comes out my lawyer asked to speak to the judge up front the DA and my lawyer walk up to the judge they whisper to each other obviously in agreeance they come back to the tables the DA says we like to dismiss this case do the section called this, this, this and that this guy is innocent the judge granted it it's crazy about it the judge that granted the conviction to be overturned is the same judge that convicted me so 10 years later I'm back in court looking at the same judge that gave me a six year sentence and now I'm looking at him saying ok this over this will be granted case dismissed no apology, no I'm sorry no hope you do well you were a kid then I'm sorry nothing granted, granted case dismissed and that was it I drive my head to the table and I just it was like an electric shock it was like a jolt of life of air of freedom of struggle, of fight I was shaking I put my head down my eyes were as wide as they can be as I'm huddling and I just I was almost like just over it was just like almost too much energy just surging through me all at once just I'm feeling my life coming back you know and just like that man just just what a few words I got my life back and I wasn't just found innocent I was found factually innocent so there's a difference that the courts don't have enough to convict you all right you innocent because we don't have enough factually innocent we fucked up we made a huge mistake you should have never went to jail for this so I was found factually innocent what happened to her? nothing this is what law needs to change if someone gets to prison time you should be doing double what they've done million percent men need more protection all the destruction in the world there's a majority of men we get it but the false accusations there needs to be laws in place because if there's laws in place and I know a lot of people are scared to come forward when this stuff does happen so I'm not discrediting anybody but men need protection from this sort of shit like it does happen quite frequently too frequently the lives are destroyed your life was totally ruined, your mum's life was ruined every bit of anyone love for you probably life was ruined because they've seen a young rising star who could have potentially been in the NFL making movies providing for his family so be it your fucking kingdom I totally agree, I say it all the time it's not a matter of do women lie or not people lie, humans lie for gain, for protection out of fear whatever whatever's going on in their lives dictates what they're gonna say people lie it's not a matter of man or woman it's people and in this case this woman lied and in other cases women do lie and yes there should be some type of repercussion punishment I totally agree here's the thing the law needs to be changed there's a statute in the state of California there's a statute of limitation of 8 years that after 8 years it's impossible to go after somebody for perjury you cannot go after someone for lying in court after 8 years I was locked up for 10 years so how am I supposed to know that during my 5 years of prison and 5 years of parole that I was supposed to go after a person for perjury when I pled no contest to a crime that I didn't commit how am I supposed to know that and who's gonna believe me and who's gonna help me fight that case you know 8 years you can't go after that person so criminally nothing has happened to her she was countersued by the school district and the court system and now owes 2.5 million but she doesn't have a dollar to her name she doesn't have anything so they'll never get a dollar from her so nothing has happened to her other than being what I like to say is guilty by Google you look up her name, you look up her face you know who it is, you know the story but that's the extent of it I do agree with you in situations like this where someone has lied in court and has ruined someone's life for a number of years whether you're a woman, man whatever you gotta face the music you can't get away with shit like that we should not have a law or a system that allows a person to destroy one's life and walk away from an unscave no repercussion, no punishment for the sake of what? where are we protecting? why do you think the whole thing happened could it have been a possibly set up to make this happen or was it just one of those things where she was scared and she didn't know where to go because listen as much as she's a fucking evil bitch you still don't understand her story it seems as if she's came from a rape fucked up home where she's probably tried to protect herself not realised the extent of it it's went too far but still again you never ruined someone's life I'm trying to I don't want to shoot her down too much because it sounds as if she is really fucked up in the head she made a lie she made the initial lie she did that let's take responsibility she made the initial lie she caused this whole thing to begin and even if it was out of fear of her mother or fear of the school or fear of the police that were involved she continued to double down and triple down and quadruple down to protect herself from whatever it was she was trying to protect herself from and I'm not saying that that is justifiable in any way because in the process of trying to protect yourself with lies you've destroyed the lives of many you've put a whole new not only did she mess up my life and my family's life but our community our neighborhood the people that we all know the people that we grew up with my story is used in my high school to this day warning boys wardrobe be safe make the right choices but not the other way around don't make lies tell the truth be honest there's definitely a lot that needs to change laws need to change limitations need to change people being held accountable for their actions needs to change like a lot I totally agree with you definitely but it's quite a personal question but when you get out a prison things are going great how do you then have split sex with a girl for the first time how in your mind without was everything okay do you know what I'm saying but even at that even if someone's saying yeah they're consenting in your mind they're thinking what do they do when they leave this room or what do you know what I'm saying how hard was that to then build some sort of trust yeah it's funny I had no dating life when I was on parole I had relationships and those relationships were formed by way of me having to expose my entire situation to them prior to anything physical happening that was for me to do I was so afraid coming home from prison of meeting women dating of anything for one I had the GPS on my ankle so if I was going to get down and do something you going to see that second of all I never wanted to put my hands on a woman until you knew everything because I didn't want you to find out later and feel like you've been lied to or tricked and then I become you know I'm back in you know some situation again with some female who's saying I took advantage of her by not making her privy to what I had been through so I'll give you an example the first relationship that I was in I got into a relationship you know I got out obviously you have your hormones running you want to catch up on lost time but I never jumped out and did it freely or openly I was on parole I was a sex offender I didn't feel comfortable doing that so instead I found a girl I really liked I would date her I went out with her a bunch of times we talk we talk we talk actually I remember like it was yesterday I took her to the beach we went on this long walk and I got to tell you something and I told her and she didn't really understand the full thing the next phase was come to my house here's the paperwork I'm pulling all out the Rida Habers corpus I'm showing all of this I'm bringing my mom let me meet you I want you to meet my mom she meets my mom my mom's talking to her about it they having a girl on girl talk when I'm not involved and then allowing her to make the decision on her own to come to me and tell me in my face I believe you I'm here for you I got your back I'm with you That's like having to get a wee update and like a cold kiss Now we can talk about having sex or being physical it was like that and both the two relationships that I was in that I was on parole for five years and I was in two relationships throughout that entire time I was never single I was never dating I couldn't even take you on a date if I wanted to you know my date's consistent of going on long walks you know I didn't have my own house wherever I'm going to take you to go get down and get busy you know I had curfew I couldn't be out late past a certain time you know so me dating in the beginning it just didn't exist the best thing that I could do was to get into a relationship and find somebody who believed me Did you ever get a story from anyone? Like from the judge from that ghetto I've never gotten a story from anybody I've never had one person that has been on the other side of this apologized to me for anything the judge, my lawyer the woman who made the accusation her family nobody I've never heard one person say I'm sorry that this happened to you it shouldn't have happened to you I'll give it, the only person I will say that is the person who made the wrong right which was the lead DA who interviewed me who created the joint investigation who stood in front of the judge and said we're dismissing this case his name is Brent Forer Rest in Peace he's no longer with us he went on from becoming the lead DA in Los Angeles to actually volunteering his time with the innocence project of Loyola in Los Angeles he all because of the hard work of the innocence project how they were able to prove my case and a few other cases it really touched him in a way to where he left the DA's office and got involved on helping other cases of wrongful conviction because it must be difficult because in such a sensitive case the majority of girls do are telling the truth as well and the majority of guys will probably be saying they've never done anything so people would sway towards the girls story more towards the guys and plus you've admitted to it so people will think and will ffuck so you can understand that but again when you hear your story in depth what you went through what your mum went through to being falsely accused to spending fucking 5 years, 6 years in prison football career ruin getting out, getting a confession but again with your story it's like a fucking rollercoaster whether we're the creators of our life before this I don't understand why you would want to create this life because it'd be far too fucking draining but the ups and the downs but it ends up becoming a silver lining you actually end up fulfilling your fucking dreams and becoming an NFL star from the graces of God or whatever how did that come about was that straight away once you found out you were innocent just now man this is me does you still believe that you were always going to whether it was a short level we had a football league in prison and no pads, no helmets and shit like that Terence shit up out there I knew I still had it straight up it was like rugby out there hitting each other but for me what it was was when I was on parole this girl came for we got her on tape admitting that she lied immediately when we recovered that and all of that took place my mind told me Brian you have an opportunity to get your life back and upon getting your life back if it happens when it happens you are going to have a small window of opportunity to do whatever it is that you want to do in your life and people will listen prepare yourself for that window of opportunity whether it's going to present itself or not whether you're going to have the opportunity or not be ready in case it does happen so when the California Innocence Project took my case on and I had that recantation video it took a year for them to appeal my case to fight the case to the point of me being found innocent and the whole thing being thrown out during that entire year that they fought my case I was in the gym I found my old I got my old homeboy he was a trainer his name is Marcus Hobbes he was training at a gym called Metro Flex I don't know if you know who CT Fletcher is CT was always a legend amongst us but before he blew up and had this huge surge of notoriety he was our pops and our gym who motivated us but I was with those guys when Metro Flex was just Metro Flex and all those guys there believed in me and it was partly due to Marcus and knowing who I was and him vouching for me but he started training me he came to him out of the blue I said look man that girl came forward I think I'm going to begin my life back I want to be ready for any opportunities with the NFL and he was the first person to not laugh and say what the fuck are you talking about he said alright let's go and I started showing up at the gym four or five in the morning training with him and then I started training with other trainers Chris Albert and other folks and basically for that year that they fought my case I was training twice a day I got on the eating regimen I started losing 30 pounds I started getting on the field and doing field work I hadn't talked to a recruiter I hadn't talked to a coach I hadn't talked to anybody associated with the NFL I just knew that if I got my life back that I would have a window of opportunity and I need to be ready for it and so I trained for that entire year and I got into the best shape I had ever been in my life and sure enough I got my life back I was exonerated I walked out of that courtroom and outside of the courthouse there was maybe 15 20 different reporters from news to radio to international news and everyone was there asking the same question what now, what now, what now and I said I want to play football and my lawyer was like get his guide opportunity and a few people laughed at the whole idea of the NFL and little did they know that whole year I was in there fucking trained and getting ready busing my butt and getting up early going to bed late, eating right lifting weights, running and the next day that I was exonerated and I made that plea my phone ring and it was Pete Carroll, the head coach of Seahawks he was the head coach of USC when I was in high school he was the one who presented me with the opportunity to go play for USC he my first recruit my first scholarship offer which was a verbal offer came from them Pete Carroll and his squad is there money in that from college football there's no one, is there anything at that time NIO is not signing on fees but it fucking sets you up for life when you start processing through it yeah so he he called me and he said I'm looking for a linebacker man you know where I can find one and I didn't know who it was you got the right number man who is this it was me man it's Pete and it was just crazy man it was like everywhere doing this recruiting dance all over again from high school to now in pros and he was like I've been keeping up with what's been going on on the news and I see you got your life back I'm so happy for you and proud of you I'm sorry you went through all of this you know I don't know if you've been working out or not but if so we love to give you an opportunity and you can't imagine the smile on my face like I'm sitting on the phone and I just smirked like because I knew I've been training I've been working out and sure enough here was that window of opportunity now I could have very well not worked out not did anything and he calls and he says man I'd like to give you a shot oh coach thanks man I'm not in any kind of shape you know I'm not even ready for that and it would have been over but luckily I took the initiative and I was ready so he was like you've been working out okay cool it flew me out the next day he's like alright you coming to Seattle next day you want to see what you got and I remember that day I was being I had an interview with the tonight show Jay Leno Jay Leno was one of his last few episodes before he was out the door and I did the tonight show and I hopped on a flight that night I was a red eye and went out there and I tried out for the Seahawks they loved what they saw they invited me back to training camp I did training camp with them and ultimately did not get signed after that five other teams started all the teams started reaching out which was awesome you know what I'm saying and I tried out for five other football teams including the Atlanta Falcons I signed with the Falcons the following year when I tried out with them it was towards the beginning of their season and they said look if we sign you now the whole season's focus is going to be you like it's just not a good look right now for what we're trying to do so after the season we'll bring you in you know at the end of the season to get you acclimated during our downtime and sure enough I went to play in the UFL which is the United Football League it's like a lower level professional league ball I did that for one season well actually half a season the league folded and went defunct but sure enough at the end of the season Falcons called me back and said you know you passed your physical you know you're in flew me out saw the dock passed the physical and went through a couple of trainings with them they loved it signed with the Falcons I had an opportunity to go through training camp summer camp I played four games with the Falcons before being let go I was a 28-year-old rookie probably one of the oldest rookies to ever play in the NFL ever no college background didn't go to college straight out of high school and I had an opportunity to run out on the field with some greats man and I had a chance to play in the NFL for a few games man it was what was that like it was kind of hard to put into words lying in a prison cell fucking known as a rapist thinking there's no way out but that feeling there everything you've put in, everything you believed as a kid everything you probably still had that in a belief even when you were in prison even when you were doing five years you always probably still had that belief so when you run out in that field as an NFL player what was the feeling was it mixed emotions that was the that was the last chapter to that horrible story for me and I don't mind you I still I still live it I still think about it I still have my dreams what could have been I still have my dreams of what I went through I never share this with anybody but one of my I only have one nightmare I don't have any other nightmares I've been having the same nightmare since I got home and that nightmare is today is my day of parole I'm supposed to be getting out but for some reason they're not letting me out and I'm frantically running around the prison asking what the fuck's going on why am I night and it sounds very simple but when you've been through what I've been through it's a pretty horrific dream you're stuck in prison and you can't get out but I mean I still have my dreams I still have my moments but I felt like that that opportunity to play in the NFL for the small time that I was there was closing the book to that that horrible experience it was a I told you so it was a I'm here now and it was a mom we did it and regardless of whatever happens after this mom like we did it we're free and I recaptured the dream that I said that I was going to recapture so it was kind of a closing chapter into all the shit that had gone down for the last 10 years of my life to finally be where I was supposed to be before it all went down on the field with the guys playing ball it's a phenomenal story but I know it's a painful one but the end product of it is what makes sense the end product is what okay somebody's got to went through pain everybody goes through pain to a certain degree you just went through more than most why do you think it happened to you though why you why were you dealt those cards do you ever ask that question you know I try my best not to ask that question because my whole life was centered around that why and occasionally you know it happens still but I try to replace that thought right away with it did happen and you can sit here and focus on why it happened or you can accept the fact that it did happen and you can look at what you did as a response to what you went through not just what you went through I feel like we all have our experiences we all go through things of the unwanted things that we never thought we would want to go through you have been through something that I will never in my life want to experience I know for a fact right which tells me that it's not the experience you know but how we deal with the experience how we allow that experience to affect us what we choose to do as a response because no experience comes with emotion we apply emotions to experiences right something happens in our life we choose to get angry about it and experiences don't come with anger this happened this is how I'm choosing to feel about it and I came to a realization that I have to remain in the driver's seat when dealing with my emotions I can't let my emotions drive the car because I'll never get anywhere you know I always have to remain the driver in my life and not letting my emotions drive not applying the wrong emotions to experiences and just trying to trying to find ways that I can continuously better myself despite everything that I've gone through and I still like I said I still have those moments you know there's no way you can go through a 10 year experience that I went through and think that because I played a few football games because there's a movie out about my life because now I'm free and I get to walk around that I'm no longer going to question why this happened that I'm no longer going to think about what I went through that it's not going to haunt me ever again it does it does it absolutely does but what I focus on is how I apply the emotions to the experience and that's always in our control always in our control I use this analogy when I do speaking engagements say you and me are in the car and I'm the driver and you're the passenger and I'm driving over 100 miles an hour and I'm going crazy I'm just going crazy driving and there's a car parked at a red light and I don't see it to the last minute and as soon as I see it I slam the brake and we just slide we get right behind this car we almost smack it but we don't right one experience two different reactions because both of us are in the car you may get out of the car take off your seatbelt and drop to your knees oh god I made it I'm still alive I'm still here thank you you go home kiss your family kiss your babies kiss your wife now you're going to church on Sundays now you're an employee at a month at work now you got a better relationship with your family members that you used to hate your whole life has changed because of this one experience of near death me as a driver I laughed it off I kept going pill off and just keep going no effect whatsoever it shows us that it's not the experience it's the person dealing with the experience and how they allow the experience to affect them and what they choose to do as a response to the experience you went through an experience as the passenger that gave you clarity into your life I went through an experience as a driver that it had no effect on me at all and you see this all the time guys that go in and out of prison back and forth, back and forth back and forth or the guy who went to jail for two days and was like fuck that you know what I mean like I got it I figured it out you know that's me you know I I see opportunities for bettering myself and not hanging on to what has happened if I hang on to that shit if I keep dwelling on it if I keep asking why it's just going to set me back instead of asking why I just accept what it was and I just find the way to be better than the accusation the experience the wrongful conviction and that's really all we can do man with the things that we go through in life life is simply life and all of life is not good who's life now? life is you know I feel like I lived I feel like I have a life like anybody else you know I have my ups I have my downs I have my good moments I have my bad moments but what I can tell you is that none of what I went through dictates that it's what's going on in the moment that dictates it I've learned how to manage the past occasionally I'll have those moments where you know it's resurfacing I've had a bad dream or you know if something happened where I'm now thinking about it but I've learned how to alright ain't nothing you can do about the past ain't gonna change what's already happened but you can focus on what's going on right now you know and what you're doing this moment determines what happens next that's my main focus I'm always in the playbook trying to make the next play how was it becoming a father? greatest moment in my life greatest moment in my life even more so I would say being exonerated proving my innocence getting my life back and being able to create life I feel like they're one and the same my son has totally changed my perspective on life on love on understanding people I dreamed about my son you know I was telling you earlier when I was in prison I dreamed of my son I saw his face I knew his name and he's here now but he's shown me how to he's given me more hope than I've ever had before I've always had the drive of my own but I think he's just giving me an added purpose or a main focus and that's just giving him a life that I never had providing him with the type of family I never had showing him what a man should be and I'm a full-time dad I spend my days with him and he's everything to me he's everything he's the future and he's definitely I'm one of those guys where we need more beautiful, strong educated, well respected men in this world and I'm so thankful that I'm in a position to have a son to help add another good man into this world and I know he's going to be great and he's going to do great things but he's my magic man he's my guy I love him to death he's a good kid How was it when the movie came out? Did it bring back a lot of emotions? Was that a good way to wake the slate clean to try and move on? Yeah man The movie definitely brought on a lot of emotion the first time I watched the film was a test screening it was a small studio movie theatre and they put the movie on and I was in a theatre by myself and it was a small test theatre so it probably made me about 40 seats 50 seats in there and I sat in the middle and they turned the lights off they played it and I probably lost weight as many tears as I cried I probably lost a few pounds that day just from tears Maybe I should stop fucking crying at me How did you lose so many? I probably lost a few pounds crying man I'm telling you I just let it all out but it was to see your life it was talking about flashbacks obviously everything in the film is not 1000% accurate but it's very close and it was a tough watch but I've seen it so many times now I travel around I'm a public speaker I'm a keynote speaker I do leadership speaking resiliency speaking I do a lot of movie and Q&A opportunities so I've seen the film so many times I've been on stage talking about my life so much over the last 11, almost 12 years that it's become a lot easier but yeah initially watching that film it was devastating it was really hard to watch hard to relive some of those moments hard to see for example the scene of my mom crying and screaming when I'm getting pulled out of my house and arrested we redid that we recreated that scene I was there when we filmed the whole movie we filmed the whole movie in Memphis, Tennessee and I was on set I was an executive producer so I had a lot of input into what was going on in the film and how things were being depicted and there are certain scenes I just didn't show up for when we were filming them today is a scene where you get arrested your mom is going to be like I'm not going to be there I won't be there for that I will show up I'm going to tell everybody what it was and how it was and then I'm just going to disappear and the same thing too I remember when she came on set I flew her out from LA to the movie set when we were filming and it was crazy she was so happy to be there so excited to be there and she was meeting everybody and shaking hands and hugging everybody and then it was like alright let's start it up and it was the monologue that Sherry Shepherd did when she was talking to the DA about do you have a son and you know what would you do if your son was in this situation and literally within minutes she just had to walk away and she just broke down crying I can't do this I can't do this and she walked away so it's tough but it's so worth it because there's so many people behind bars right now for crimes they didn't commit there's so many people that are voiceless that have no one reaching out speaking up for them helping them out I had an opportunity to my hardship into a tool for people to learn from to live vicariously through and to develop hope from that in their situations or their family member situation or friend situation that they can get through what they went through whatever it may be so I value that I stepped up to the plate for that it was a choice of do you want to make a film or not I wasn't always gunhaul like making a film but the conversation kept coming up and the discussions kept coming up on how beneficial this film could be how it could help people how it could change the perception of our legal system and it just made sense that I went through everything that I went through maybe to be a beacon of hope for others Where do you go forward for the future brother? Continue to a good fight man My main focus is travelling as an educator and speaker on wrongful convictions on overcoming adversity on resiliency I'm going to continue that I think as much as I can however many people want to hear my story I'll be there to tell it it's a story that needs to be told it's a story that represents so many other people and other experiences Aside from that I'll continue raising my son being a good dad and just living life as it comes and joining it as I can I can't tell the future I tend to live in the moment and live for today and today is just it's a day to just be thankful I'm here talking to you here's another opportunity for me to share a story that so many people can resonate with and it's not even about I can relate to this because I've been wrongfully accused or I've been in jail it's beyond that we are all going through things in life that we never thought we would go through we never thought we would experience but here we are in that situation and there aren't too many places to turn to where you can decipher how to deal with certain things you can read these self-help books and you can listen to people online telling you to just deal with it and it's harder than that certain things you just can't deal with but if you could show someone pushing and pushing and never giving up and finding ways to be better and finding ways to prove their innocence doing all that they can to to push past the adversity I think that those stories are the stories that need to be told and the ones that we should continue to enhance and enlighten so now instead of looking at the why me I kind of look at it now as why not me? I'm in a position now where I can talk about it I can express what I've gone through and how I deal with it and it's it's therapeutic for me in a lot of ways every time I get on stage and I talk even though I'm talking about stuff that I always talk about there's going to be a question that comes in from the audience that's going to be probably something I've never been asked before which is going to put my brain into different thoughts and flashbacks and thinking of old stuff and maybe to help me navigate through that and gain another piece of clarity on this and I enjoy those moments clarity For anybody that's maybe a life of trouble just now what advice would you have for them? The advice for anybody that may be in similar trouble or just trouble in general man I would definitely go back to the emotional control I think one of the biggest one of the biggest things that we can master is control of our emotions sometimes our emotions get the best of us and will put us in far worse situations than we were in the beginning even if it's something I'm going to say small because for someone else it's big even if it's a breakup when you break up with someone you love so much and you can sit there and dwell on all the negative things and by the time you've finished dwelling you'll be in the same place or you can look at the positives redirect your emotions and how you allow the situation to affect you and do something positive about it or something more reinforcing that helps you progress and move forward in life versus stagnate you another analogy I use I'll say real quick remember when you were a little kid and your mom and your dad told you go in there and clean up that dirty room and you go into your room and you see how dirty your room is and instead of cleaning you just throw a tantrum because you don't want to clean it you kick it and you scream and you fight in the air and you cry and you drop it on the ground and you're flailing all over the place and your brother comes in and you're asking your brother to help you clean it and your brother says no and your sister peeks in eventually you stop kicking and you stop screaming and you stop crying and you wipe your eyes and you stand up and you look around the room and the room is still dirty you just spent 20-30 minutes of your life kicking, screaming, begging other people to help you come change the outcome of your room life right and nothing changed because you didn't do it and ultimately that's what it comes down to is things that we go through in life can easily be overcome in some fashion or form if you put that work into doing it it really comes down to you wanting more for yourself than anybody else could want for you and I think that's what got me through my experience was the fact that I was never going to quit regardless of what I was going through I was always going to keep pushing because nobody else going to push for you the way you could push for yourself so I would tell people to focus on the things that you can focus on and never mind the things that you can't until you can learn how to deal with your emotions and not let your emotions deal with you and always remember what you do when this moment determines what happens next so make the next move your best move How can people get in contact with you for work or just ask you a simple question on social media what's all your platforms brother? All of my social media handles is Brian Banks Free F-R-E-E my website BrianBanksFree.com I have everything up there as far as my story to my journey as a public speaker so if anybody has any questions or wants to I'm always looking for opportunities to further tell them my story and stories of others Brother, will I send you direct to finish up on anything else? No, I mean if anything just thank you I really thank you because I really respect you and what you're doing, your podcast the platform that you've created has grown so huge and you've gained so much success from it so first of all say congratulations to you and then thank you for using that platform to highlight a story such as mine because there's so many other stories out there that's a lot more attractive and sexier that may get more clicks but you're focusing on a really good subject here and I think people will see that and resonate with that keep doing your thing man it's a phenomenal story and I wish you nothing but the best for you the future for you and your son and your partner God bless you brother