Original subtitles

My past has been painful.

But once that drug came into the picture, everything completely changed.

I felt powerful in a way that I'd never felt before.

Pack your bags. Gotta leave. Now.

That was where things took a big turn for the worse.

What? It was a bad nightmare.

Where have you been?

And there was no way out.

I knew that everything I lived for, drugs, freedom, parties, it was all

In 2004, I was working in Buffalo, New York for a major cell phone company.

When I went into sales, I went all in because my personality

is kind of an addictive personality.

I've always been the type of guy who likes to take things on full bore.

If it's money, I want more.

If it's cocaine, I want more.

Being out with Kali, we worked really hard, we played really hard.

The money was flowing in.

I was selling more cell phones than anybody else in the company.

Things from the outside look great.

But internally, there was a lot of pain, I think, that I wanted to escape from.

Growing up, I was living in a religious cult.

My father was a pastor of a church.

which had the twisted perspective on Christianity.

I had two brothers and a sister. I was the oldest.

When my sister was four years old, she got leukemia.

My parents were trying to save her life, but they were so tied into that church,

they were leaning.

a little bit too far into the faith side.

I was 11 years old when Molly died.

It was very traumatic for me.

I

was

very angry with my parents.

And over the years, I went into complete rebellion mode.

I was always looking for a way to alleviate the pain and just kind of

But doing a lot of cocaine just leaves you feeling empty.

And my financial situation was beginning to crumble.

My life had spiraled out of control.

And then one day, I read a newspaper article about teachers in Korea.

What I discovered was that there was virtually no drugs in the country.

And I thought maybe a geographical change would be the cure that I was

for to fix my life.

I got a teaching job.

with the Korean language school.

I was feeling lots of relief and excitement for what lay ahead.

And so everything seemed new and strange.

I thought everything was going to work out perfectly.

Life completely changed for me.

Yeah. I'm enjoying teaching these kids.

What you gotta do is that.

Cravings for cocaine evaporated.

The dark cloud covered the sky.

I really had a high sense of self -satisfaction.

Good.

It was really kind of a heaven on earth.

I had a really good time with my fellow English teachers.

The funny thing was, after about five months, I started to process some of my

emotions.

Painful feelings started to crop up from my youth, and I couldn't control them.

I started to crave drugs.

I'd heard that if I went to the right part of town, I could find some

The Koreans refer to it as the foreigner ghetto. It's called Itaewon.

As a drug user, there's kind of a sixth sense that you develop.

for who might be up to shady things.

That night, I met somebody who changed everything for me.

PJ was a small fellow with a very big smile.

Immediately, he pulled out a bag and he told me that he'd been selling this

stuff in Seoul for some time.

I'd never tried MDMA, but I'd heard about it and I wanted to try.

He assured me that I'd be very satisfied.

The MDMA was exciting.

There was a lot of love.

It was a very warm, inviting sensation.

My past has been painful.

MDMA provided the missing love.

Once that drug came into the picture, everything completely changed.

Sharing MDMA with my friends, it was kind of cool.

And I knew that they wanted to buy more and more of it.

I never had any plans to become a dealer, but I was the only one that

up with a connection.

And the idea of doing what I wasn't supposed to and taking the risk, that's

just me. I'm kind of rebellious that way.

I called PJ the following week to buy a batch.

We worked out a deal where I would bring $5 ,000 cash for 50 grams of MDMA.

PJ wanted to meet on his territory, someplace I'd never been before.

He was somebody that I really didn't know.

I had this faint doubt.

Playing in the back of my mind that he could be an undercover police officer.

And that everything was about to go wrong.

But I went through with it.

The train station was just desolate.

PJ was nowhere to be found.

Suddenly I was super paranoid.

I just had this horrible sense that there was somebody watching me.

This was way out of my comfort zone.

I had this incredible sense that I was about to be set up in some sort of sting

operation.

That was PJ.

Hello, mate.

Hey, yeah.

Meet me at Bond Island.

He told me to meet him at a bar nearby.

See you there at five. Okay.

Got it.

There was a lot of fears going through my mind about making that deal.

I've handed the money underneath the counter.

He gave me a bag of MDMA.

It was actually several grams over what it should have been.

It was exactly what I'd come for.

That first dealer set me on a new path that would completely change my life.

Deciding to become a dealer probably wasn't too smart, but the excitement and

thrill of that lifestyle was what I was really yearning for.

Six months into living in Korea, business really started taking off.

What do you want, beer?

Itaewon became like a second home to me. Yep, five beers.

One of the bartenders, she and I had a rapport immediately.

I want a beer too.

Too young, and I started a relationship.

She had a really terrific attitude. She's a good -looking girl and loved to

a good time.

The MDMA process just started to get more streamlined.

PJ had some really specialized ways of getting it over to Korea from England.

He liked to do these hair -grooming products for men.

He would conceal the drugs in those packages.

I was now focused on how can I increase this revenue.

Hey, I got something for you.

Too young about these empty capsules.

We found a $50 dose gave the average human being a great night.

The capsules were a hit.

Money's just pouring in.

I was living a double life.

Teaching during the daytime.

and dealing late at night.

There was a lot of love.

It had been missing in my life for a long time.

When I was growing up, my parents never showed me pure love.

Life had not been this good in years.

So by now, I had plenty of people that wanted to sell for me. DJ Carl. He

was definitely focused on selling lots of drugs.

And then there was Jamie.

Jamie was one of the few people over there that didn't have a teaching job.

But he was always working hard selling drugs for me.

elevated me one level, one step away from the street.

The business was making at least $10 ,000 a week.

You're looking at $40 ,000, $50 ,000 a month.

The biggest problem was what to do with all the money.

There was limits on how much I could put in the banks.

I bought a safe to keep the money in.

Filling that up with money and just feeling kind of this twisted sense of

accomplishment.

I was just caught up in the moment, thinking that I deserved this, you know,

that I was entitled to this.

I was now the main source of MDMA in

South Korea.

I felt powerful in a way that I'd never felt before.

As each month went past, I kind of had more of a sense of security.

I thought that I was smarter than anybody out there, and I didn't think

captured.

But now, for me, it's pretty much just a daily party.

So one night, Carl and I headed off to Taiwan for the weekend.

We found a busy club.

We had a great night.

We stayed out partying until the sun came up.

I remember by Sunday morning, I was quite hungover.

I came over to check my laptop, and there was an urgent message from Sue

I said, don't ever come back here. You can never return to Korea.

Immediately, all these scenarios played through my mind.

None of them good.

Hey, what happened? Are you okay?

No, I'm not okay.

Sue Young told me she just happened to stop by the apartment that morning.

on her heels came in the police.

She said they had a hand -drawn map.

I

couldn't

believe it. Jamie had betrayed us.

I knew that Korean police would

pass the names onto some sort of international list.

I bang on Carl's room.

Pack your bag.

The net was closing in on us.

They raided my apartment. Pack your bags. We've got to leave now.

We're on the run.

Pick up, pick up.

If I try to get on an airplane, am I going to get arrested?

Oh, hey, hey, two people. How much is that going to be?

Sound good.

We ultimately decided to risk it and buy a ticket to Thailand.

And that was my big mistake.

My primary

concern was getting through passport control.

I was standing in line with Carl behind me.

I was very nervous.

I was sure that the Korean police had put out an international alert for us.

I remember feeling like I wanted to run.

The officer looked at my passport.

I just focused on my breathing and staying calm.

Are you American?

Yeah, yeah.

American.

In that moment, I knew something was wrong.

Attention, please.

For security reasons, please do not leave your belongings unattended.

But then she just gave me back my passport.

I couldn't believe it.

And we were both in just like that.

The plan was to not sell any drug.

to not break the law in any way, to simply lay low for as long as it took.

I remember getting rid of all phones and SIM cards and anything that could trace

me back to where I was.

Pattaya turned out to be one of the sleazier parts of Thailand.

The first few weeks, we were just kind of stuck in a holding pattern.

Even though there was plenty of things to do, beaches, nightlife, none of it

satisfying.

There was a constant awareness that I might need to run at any given time.

Having a narrow escape makes you kind of appreciate what you have in life.

Even though I'd had troubles with my parents, by this time it would have been

nice to see them.

My brother's the same.

But how could I tell them what's happening?

That I was a wanted man.

That was really tough.

It really all added up to more than I could bear.

After two months on the run, my whole goal was to stay off the radar as much

possible. The problem was Carl wanted to get back

in the game and start dealing.

I just felt like it was way too soon to get back into that business.

He was always hammering it away at me.

And so eventually I let Carl talk me into ordering a small shipment into

Thailand.

It seemed worth the risk, I suppose, because it was kind of hard to earn a

living there in Pattaya.

I gave PJ a ring and told him what I needed.

50 grams of MDMA shipped from the UK.

We're back in business.

I wanted to keep the drugs in an alternate location, someplace nearby,

where I was sleeping.

Yeah, it's good. I'll take it. I rented a room in a cheap hotel.

I thought. I told the clerk I didn't have my passport with me and that I'd

it later.

Thank you.

I knew that Thai police were very, very keen to trap foreigners with drugs.

I knew that there were harsh penalties.

So I found a loose pipe fitting behind the sink, stuffed the drugs inside

that pipe and closed it up.

The system was in place.

Now Carl was eager to get back doing what he did best

One

night

Carl got a call for some business and that I'll be back in a minute

15 minutes later, he still wasn't back.

So I started getting curious what he was doing.

Carl!

Hey, what's up, Jeff?

What's going on, man? What's taking so long?

So I got your half right here.

You know what I mean? There you go, your money.

Just after he handed me the money, the police come out of nowhere.

There was nowhere to run.

That was where things took a big turn for the worse.

I knew that whatever was coming, it wasn't good.

I was still holding out a little hope.

They didn't catch me with any drugs.

All of it was back at the safe house.

Where are the drugs, Jesse?

I don't know what's going on here.

Another guy came down.

I was unable to defend myself.

The truth is, it

was torture.

And it went on for a long time.

And it was really brutal.

Where are the drugs, Jesse?

I figured if I could just hold out, and if Carl could hold out, then we'd be all

right.

I don't know anything.

I wasn't giving that safe house up.

I had the fanny pack.

Inside it, there was a receipt from an internet cafe.

And that had an address on it.

It was just a scrap of paper. I didn't think it was going to result in

They took us to that internet cafe.

The employee clearly acknowledged, yes, those two, we've seen it.

So we were tied to that location.

From there, we started going to every hotel around the neighborhood.

They went systematically from one hotel to the next.

Finally, they pulled up at...

the Stash House Motel.

There was only the one woman who had seen my face a couple months prior.

We were just kind of hoping against hope that she didn't recognize me.

But she didn't hesitate. She gave me up right away.

They searched the room.

It took less than 90 seconds for them to have the sink apart and have the drugs

come out of the pipe in the back.

They had a big bag of capsules, a 25 -gram bag of MDMA,

and a scale.

I thought I was clever enough not to get caught, but... In that moment, I knew

that everything I lived for, drugs, freedom, parties, it was all over.

Bombat Central Prison was foreboding.

They gave me some paperwork, but I couldn't read any of it.

I just kept them with me.

It was then I heard the screaming.

They took Carl and I to different

cells.

I later learned that Carl was transferred to a different prison.

I never saw him again.

When you get in that cell and they shut the door, you really start to see how

terrible the living conditions were.

The toilet area was the only place I could lay down.

It just seemed like it was a bad nightmare and there was no way out.

I was entirely clueless as to how much time I was facing.

There was one guy who spoke quite good English.

Can you translate that?

He said, in Thailand, anything over 20 grams of MDMA gives you a life sentence.

But even worse than that, you got caught with baggies, pills.

and a scale that's manufacturing anytime you see that charge manufacture it's a

death penalty he looked at me and very

firmly said you're never going to leave here you'll die here

I was unable to think about much else other than the death penalty case.

What I needed to do was speak to the American embassy in Thailand.

But I'd been there for weeks and hadn't seen them.

I felt abandoned.

Prison life was tough.

There was rampant drug use.

And the food situation was bleak.

The people that worked in the food department stole all the meat so they

keep it for themselves.

So there was this young kid. He worked in the canteen.

And he would look out for me and share his food.

How long have you been inside?

Maybe four years.

Four years.

That's a long time.

It doesn't take much when you're in prison and you're really struggling.

You know, if somebody shows you any kindness.

This kid, he did that quite often.

He was always quick to smile and just my kind of guy.

His friendship was this bright sunshine spot in the Thai prison.

About 45 days into my prison stay, I got a letter from my family.

My brother Ben was letting me know that he understood the choices I'd made maybe

weren't the best, but he forgave me, and he loved me nonetheless.

That moment, it was just... It was like this incredible clarity that, you know,

maybe I'll never see this kid again.

And there's, you know, there's so much regret.

My parents and I have had a contentious relationship all these years.

Now, facing the death penalty, I realize that I had made a big mess of a lot of

people's lives through this whole drug business.

One morning, this guy comes up to me.

I worked

out my friend had some sort of altercation

in the cell.

He

was

a victim of somebody's foot.

in his chest.

Are you in pain?

No. No? Are you sure?

He was smiling and he wasn't in a lot of pain.

Okay, it's okay. It's going to be okay.

I left him in the hospital room looking for a doctor who could help.

When I came back, he was dead.

It turned out he had a broken rib that pierced his lung.

It was a bright spot in my life.

To see him gone was devastating.

It took me back to the death of my sister.

There's just so much anger, rage, frustration, seeing people die that

didn't need to die.

It just felt like it was a matter of time before something snapped.

On a loudspeaker, they said that I had a visit.

And so I went to the visiting area.

On the other side of the glass was a gentleman in a suit.

He was a Thai national, but working at the American embassy in Thailand.

And I'd been there for weeks. They hadn't contacted me. There was no

There was no acknowledgement that I was there.

Where have you been?

Where have you been?

Suddenly, all the anger, it just all poured out.

In that 90 -second tirade, I did a lot of damage.

That was my one lifeline.

And now I'd totally blown it.

Get out of here.

It was probably one of the worst things I could have done.

I'm facing the death penalty, and it was a hard pill to swallow.

After that visit with Noom and the American Embassy,

I had the time to kind of consider the horrible

decision I'd made by yelling at him.

It occurred to me that maybe I could do something worthwhile.

I just decided.

I was going to learn Thai.

So I started writing Noom one letter per month.

The first letter I wrote to him was maybe two or three sentences long.

Over the months and the years that followed, the letters got a little

But Noom continued to ignore me.

Four years into my prison sentence, something extraordinary happened.

My lawyers found a loophole in the law.

The three -judge panel decided to drop the death penalty case.

They got my life sentence reduced to 27 years.

There's an elation. You know, hey, I'm alive.

But you kind of look around and realize, I got about 27 more years of this.

27 years is a long time to be locked up in a cage.

One afternoon, a visit is called through on the loudspeaker.

I didn't know who it was. I just knew that I had a visit.

Behind the glass, there was Noom.

I was just dumbfounded.

And then he picked up my latest letter.

He held it up to the glass and said, Jesse, you...

made so many mistakes with my language.

That was a... That was a joke, you know? After I'd, you know,

yelled and cursed at this man four years earlier.

The fact that he could joke with me and he'd actually shown up on his own time

to, uh...

To chat with me.

Just showed that.

You know you can heal.

A broken relationship.

And.

Sorry.

We became friends that day.

I guess the last four years. I'd shown enough care to learn his language.

And he was able to return that kindness.

I will try to help you.

It was like.

You know, relearning something that, you know, a criminal is not capable of

doing, which is to care for other people.

Please take care.

That visit taught me a lot.

It taught me the value of forgiveness.

I thought about my parents, how I blamed them for Molly's death.

But now I came to realize they were simply human beings doing the best that

could as well.

There was the level of forgiveness I was able to give to them and to myself,

which really changed a lot in how I perceive the world today.

Six months later, things were looking up.

Noon told me the American government might allow me to transfer back to the U

.S. and serve the remaining.

20 some odd years in my sentence in an American prison.

A month later, my case was accepted.

After five years and two months, I transferred back to the U .S. on May 23,

2013.

Luckily, the

U .S. government decided that one year in a Thai prison is equivalent to about

six years in an American prison.

Today I run a marketing firm and a podcast called Recovery Authors that

people overcome addictions of all sorts.

I think mom and dad were both relieved to see the changes that prison brought

about in me.

I was really grateful to be home for the last couple years of my mom's life. She

passed away last year, but I was able to be here and be a friend to her.

Today, my dad and I are best friends.

We live about a mile apart, so I get to see him all the time.

There's a lot of gratitude at being free right now.