Original subtitles

We were like brothers.

Two people just trying to make some extra money doing something crazy.

Got a proposal for you.

I risk everything.

You ain't gonna see daddy for a while, man.

What gambling?

You know my life.

Is your back?

How did it come to this?

I didn't have my career.

I didn't have my freedom. Where's my money? Keep your voice down. No! I

have family.

Sorry? This could be the moment. My life changes forever for the bad.

I joined the Navy in 2003 at the age of 18.

Before the military, I definitely was a bigger risk taker than the people that I

hung around.

I would push the bounds of authority.

I joined to get me on a path that would bring out a positive future for me.

By the age of 24,

I had just passed the second -class petty officer test.

Congratulations. I transferred in 2008 to Sicily, Italy.

I met Ali.

We had our son.

We thought that we both were deeply in love until things started to turn down a

difficult path.

$12 ,000?

That was borrowing money.

to gamble.

It became a gambling addiction.

I started to take some serious losses.

I kept giving myself excuses.

It's not that bad.

I can recuperate from the damage done.

I had took out In less than a year, over $12 ,000.

And at the end of the day, I didn't have anything to show for it.

I'm sorry.

Sorry?

So we decided to split, and that she and my son will be heading back to the

States.

It didn't really hit me until I was at the airport.

I was going to miss out on his first words, his

first footsteps.

Looking back, I was the man that didn't appreciate the things that I had.

At that time, I was very irresponsible and young.

And I believe that was one of the main reasons that things didn't work out.

The day that my wife and son went home was the same day that I met

Dom.

Hey, man.

You going back to base?

Yeah, man, sure.

You need a ride? Yeah, yeah, please.

Hop in. Thanks.

That meeting would change my life forever.

Tom, nice to meet you, man. Lamar.

What's happening?

Just life, man.

He seemed like he was a real confident person.

He said he was born in Dominican Republic.

Do you like music?

Sure. He grew up in Florida.

He invited to take me out around the Latin community.

It was just what I needed to do.

clear my mind out.

It was the first Latin experience I ever had.

But Dom knew a lot of people already.

I didn't speak Spanish, so I was being led

by Dom just there absorbing this new environment.

Yo, what's going on over there, man?

See, most of these guys are drug dealers.

There's always some kind of beef going on. Don't worry about it.

At this moment, I'm thinking, I don't think I'm going to like this crowd.

You know,

I was worried about the people that he hung around.

But I enjoyed hanging and going out before I was married. So I said, okay,

me try to bring back some positive emotions, you know.

Before too long, we began to hang out pretty much every day.

Sometimes we would party Friday

night, you know, 24, 48, 72 hours straight.

There was a lot of money spent on pleasure.

The debt that I accumulated became way, way worse.

But I partied more because my medicine was pleasure to cover the pain.

It was a place where I could forget about the trouble, kind of take me to a

fantasy world.

One morning, all the partying caught up with me.

I am coming.

It was my supervisor.

I was supposed to have been at work at 7. It was about 11 .30.

Report to the commander immediately.

Come.

I knew they was going to get me for being four hours unauthorized absence.

I did.

Were you out drinking last night, Petty Officer Burton?

You know, I didn't want it to be known I was late for alcohol because I knew

that would have been a serious repercussion. So I lied to him. I said,

And he was like, I'm going to ask you again.

Did you drink alcohol last night?

No, sir.

And he said, because I know you're lying to me, I'm going to demote you down a

pay grade effective immediately.

Dismissed.

Dismissed.

And I was devastated.

That's pretty much $1 ,300 less a month.

At this time, I was sending $2 ,300 a month back to my wife and son.

How do I come back from this?

Demotion, man.

Me and Don were best friends at the time. They got me painting gates all

Got a proposal for you.

So there's a thing, kind of risky, but it could help you out.

He explained it real vague at first. He said, hey, you just take a trip

somewhere in South America. You know, you have fun, you party, you bring

something back.

Once you bring the package back, you get 10 ,000 euros.

And what's the cat? Listen, you're going to have to trust me on this. The less

you know, the better it is for you.

I assume definitely that it was drugs.

Man, you're crazy.

I could be captured.

I could face jail time.

You know, I'm not this type of guy.

What if I go with you?

Will you go through with it?

My finances are so messed up. The people at the airport I paid off.

With this money, I could definitely take care of my responsibilities.

It's just a matter of keeping it cool, man.

That's it.

I knew that if he was willing to take that flight with me, then he had to have

been confident that things were going to go pretty good.

So I decided to take a chance and just put blind trust into him.

I asked for two weeks vacation.

I didn't let anyone know that I was going to take a trip to Columbia.

The plan was that Don would land before me, and my

flight would come a couple hours after his flight.

Felt like I was in a tough part of the world.

Yo, Lamar.

Where have you been, man? You're late.

Told me that he spoke to the boss man.

Right now we have someone to meet that's well -trusted.

¿Tú eres Dom?

Sí, mucho gusto, Dom.

Él es Lamar, pero no habla español.

This guy was telling him, this is going down at this time, this is going down at

that time.

And at that moment, I realized that Dom wasn't as high up in the ranks that I

thought.

I realized that we pretty much was in the same scenario.

You know, two people just trying to make some extra money doing something crazy.

And that right there had me feeling nervous.

It's pretty much the blind leading the blind.

I stayed in a rough hotel.

Just killed time until he came back from another meeting.

What up, Lamar?

That's the work right there, man. That's the stuff.

They were leather jackets.

Bro, they actually soaked the cocaine into the leather in the jackets.

That kind of gave me a little bit more confidence, even if they got a hold of

the jackets. There's no way somebody can just pull out cocaine.

But I was still nervous.

You know, we could be locked up tomorrow.

See you in Tisley.

We was only in Columbia for a couple days.

When I arrived in the airport, I'm telling myself, you know, think of it as

normal flight that I've taken many, many times before.

There was a strong feeling that I was being watched.

But Dom had told me that somebody that paid off was there to assist me to make

sure everything went well.

So as I went forward to check in, there was a long

two seconds when it came to him looking at the passport and me.

But when I saw the suitcase going through, it was a relief.

And I just felt that, hey, everything went well.

I'm doing everything normal.

I wasn't concerned about anything at that point because I knew the drugs was

the suitcase.

Immediately,

I see her signal to another woman.

I'm like, what is going on?

This is not normal.

I was just thinking.

a million miles an hour, just thinking about all kind of scenarios.

So I said, okay, this is kind of weird.

I was thinking, you know, just stay cool, see what happens.

And that was my luggage.

What happens from here?

I was like, don't look guilty.

Don't look so suspicious.

He begins to pull the jackets out, and I'm thinking, this could be the moment

where my life changes forever for the bad.

He got the bag, and he just slid out the two leather jackets.

I didn't believe it. He just told me to pretty much, you can go ahead and get on

the plane.

I did what I was supposed to do.

Now to the next objective.

to get on his plane and to get out of Columbia as soon as possible.

I got back to Italy with no problems and went straight to Dom's apartment.

How was your flight? Not bad.

When we getting paid?

Not yet.

There's a project that has to be done. The cocaine is still in the jacket. So

get paid when the chemist flies in and takes the cocaine out again.

When's that?

A few weeks, 30 days or so.

Don't worry about it. You'll get your money. Relax.

My finances are so messed up.

And now I'm depending on him.

to do something I have no control over.

After almost about a month, I didn't hear anything from Dom, so I decided to

confront him about the situation.

I thought perhaps money was being made but I wasn't getting my cut.

Well, Dom, where's my money? Hey, man, relax.

No, no, no. Where's my money? Keep your voice down. No!

Once he saw how serious I was... Dom, I've got a right to know what's going

He came out and just told me... Okay.

There is no money.

Things didn't go as planned, man.

I risk everything to get to this point.

I did think of violence.

But the biggest concern was that it would get out to the military.

Either you're hustling me or you're telling me the truth.

And when I find out which one it is, that's when I'll decide what happens

Anger really turned into sadness.

We're supposed to be like brothers.

But I just need to move forward and stay away from them.

Throughout the following year, my debt has continued to grow to about $17 ,000.

Checks that had bounced would need to be taken care of.

I can't even see a way to come out of the big hole that I dug for myself.

Then one day, a year after I had last seen Dawn, a friend insisted that, you

know, we go to the Latin club.

I was outside waiting.

There was no way to avoid them.

We were literally one foot apart, face to face.

Yo, Demar.

What's going on, man?

How you been?

Not too good.

Things have been a little bit tight.

Looks like you've been doing all right, though.

Let me talk to you, man. Please.

I could tell that he had kind of a look of shame.

Listen, I'm really sorry things got so messed up between us.

I know it was my fault, and I'm sorry.

Come on, dog, I'm serious, man.

You were my best friend.

I miss you, man.

I do.

I chose to maintain my calmness, my peace.

You know, I chose to forgive versus hold grudges.

Just leave that in the past.

Yeah, we're good.

I forgive you, man.

And then we went in the club like we never missed a beat.

That night, he brought the subject up and told me that he was still...

Smuggling drugs.

Listen, dog.

Things are more organized right now.

I'm with you guys.

I'm really well connected.

I just want you to have another go.

It's easy. 10 ,000 euros.

I was pretty desperate.

I needed to keep things afloat by any means necessary.

And I'll give you half of the money up front.

Amen. Once again, I was gambling with my life.

So a year after my first trip to Colombia, I flew back on my own to

cocaine for the second time.

The last time, everything went so smoothly that I thought this time it

the same way.

I'll speak Spanish, man.

Without Dom, didn't have a way to communicate.

I didn't know if it was either washed in or if it was actually

packed inside.

I just knew that in this bag somewhere was cocaine.

It didn't feel good at all.

Felt helpless, pretty much.

During the ride to the airport, a big emotion came upon me, a fear that I

have control of the vent.

He pretty much

signaled, walk the rest of the way.

First thought was, he's trying to avoid from being seen on the camera.

So at that moment, it was just, you know, me and a bag full of problems and

issues.

When I got to the airport, right by the entrance,

There was a police officer standing there.

Suddenly, my nerves get the best of me.

I felt that I had fear written all over my face.

Something kept telling me that, take this flight, you're not going home.

You're going down a whole other journey.

A whole lot of thoughts went through my head.

Maybe I could just catch a cab, go back to the hotel and tell them, can't do it.

But I definitely thought there would be some consequences.

Maybe that Dom or someone that was above Dom tried to get me hit.

I felt that my life possibly could be in danger if I didn't go through with it.

Went to the check -in.

Next.

It was the lady that flagged me the first time.

ID, please.

My biggest thing was try to prevent eye -to -eye contact.

Where are you traveling?

Mr. Moore, where are you traveling?

Sicily.

Your flight is departing from gate 54.

Have a good flight.

So far, so good.

But as I proceed to the gate, I notice that this time they are doing carry -on

inspections.

My nerves start to build up again.

As the lady is searching through, she sticks her nose down and

she looks like, what is this? Like, what in the world is this stench?

I would take an air freshener and I would plug it in the hotel sometimes to

the room smell good.

I know there's no drugs in the carrier.

All I need to do is just maintain calmness.

Everything will go well.

Is your back?

Yeah.

She already had everything out of my luggage.

Something's wrong here.

And at

that

moment, it was pretty much, this is it.

If something comes out, I'm going to jail.

I felt numb and broken.

Perico, come with me.

And I told myself, that's it.

Come.

It's over.

I'm about to live a life of a criminal.

That day was one of the lowest points that I had fallen in my whole entire

I just felt there was just me in the world by myself.

No one can help you out, basically.

They took me to a police station.

Hi.

I'll be helping with your case.

There was a guy that gave me an impression that he was assisting the

Is there anyone you would like to call, let them know you're here?

I gave them my mother, my father's, and Dom, my brother.

Looking back, giving them Dom's number may have been a mistake.

Okay. So tell me everything that happened.

At that moment, I thought of a story.

There was this taxi driver that took me around while I was out there, and I had

asked him to get me a new suitcase.

I had bought so many clothes and goods.

They didn't fit in the one that I already had.

I asked the cab driver to give me a bigger luggage.

That luggage must have had something in it.

That's the one I got caught with.

You're going to have to tell me the truth if you want my help.

The next morning, they took me out of the jail cell.

All handcuffed, hand -to -hand.

You speak English?

I'm from the States.

My name is Carlos.

You know where we're going?

He said La Modelo was one of the toughest jails in Colombia.

You better prepare yourself.

Hey, vamos, vamos, señores. Por favor, hermanos.

Hey, vamos, vamos.

I remember stepping off the bus to the smell of tear gas.

And the residue of the gas was choking everybody.

They were saying fish in Spanish.

It was kind of like a scare tactic.

You know, I'm just looking at each person I'm walking by.

You know, prepared to defend myself.

It was worse than I expected.

I'm trying to prevent from looking scared because inside I was terrified.

I had it in my mind that if I had to fight, you know, I had to fight.

I felt relieved.

But, you know, tomorrow someone else is going to probably try me.

That night I didn't sleep at all.

I was sitting there basically trembling cold and just thinking about, you know,

how did it come to this?

Mistakes on top of mistakes made.

I felt ashamed.

The next morning, there's a guy standing looking at us.

He basically led us into a cell.

I'll do the talking, okay?

I'll tell you what he says.

It definitely wasn't what I expected.

His top bunk was basically like a shelf where they had all type of food, sauces,

alcohol. I'm thinking, how do I get this?

The guards work for us.

We pay them and they turn a blind eye.

Then we can buy anything we need.

So I learned how the prison works.

With money, you can have pretty much whatever you desire besides freedom.

from my wage, from the military.

I had more money than pretty much the majority of the people that was there.

I was able to do a lot of things that I was doing before on the outside.

In jail, when they saw a person that had money, it gave a

different level of respect.

Hey, it's me.

I called home regularly.

The normal routine was pretty much how's everything going, everything okay, and

then let me speak to my son.

Hey,

little man.

It's me.

He was so young at the time, he couldn't hold the phone, so I would ask him to

just put the phone to his ear so he can hear my voice.

Always remember, man, daddy loves you.

Daddy loves you.

All right?

I always wanted his first words to be daddy.

Come on, say dada.

Say dada.

Then one time he repeated it back to me. I heard him say dada, dada, dada.

I just wanted to scream

out and tell everybody around me, you know, my boys have my name.

But I'm looking around like nobody's going to understand me.

For a moment.

It was abundant joy.

But I realized that I was missing my son.

Looking back, I can say that I was using pleasure to try to cover up a lot of

the pain.

But the truth was, I felt lonely and sad.

Sundays made it even worse for me because a lot of mothers and fathers,

and kids come in to visit other inmates.

I would sit there all day seeing people laugh, being able to enjoy a good meal

with them, hold each other.

It showed me how important relationships are and family and taking care of the

people that you love.

Hola.

Soy Milena.

My name, Milena.

Your name?

I'm Elena.

Came into my life. Mucho gusto.

It was just one of the warmest feelings I had my entire time up to then.

¿Quieres caminar conmigo?

Walk.

You want to walk? Los dos, walk.

You want to walk? Yes.

Ven.

I took a walk.

Attempted to have a conversation.

Thank you. You just said I was beautiful.

She was like an angel sent from heaven.

So every weekend, even though she was on her brother's visitation list, she came

to see me also.

I had a purpose now.

I had to get to know a beautiful woman.

But in jail, things change. They drop off a dime.

Three days before New Year's of 2012, I was told that I had a visitor.

I was in probably about three months now.

I was thinking, what's going on?

You want to sit?

I've come to inform you that from the new year, you will no longer receive any

payment from the military.

I had assumed that I would continue to get income from the military until I had

been discharged.

What? The money that you received so far is back paid for unclaimed vacation

days. Good luck.

I knew from that point that my privileges would come to an end.

So to make myself feel better, I called home to hear my son's voice.

My ex -wife answered.

Hello.

I just informed her that there's no more income.

And from there, I just said, I'll speak to my son.

The phone hung up.

I called back probably ten times.

No one answered the phone.

At that moment, it hit me.

Blew my chance to be there for my son and to build that relationship.

You know, I let him down.

How and where could I be there for behind bars?

I knew that the money I was sending was the main means of support for my son.

After the military told me that I was no longer receiving wages, I reached out

to Dom because I thought he might be able to help me.

Money was tight, but he was about to make another operation that could help

change all that.

I'm desperate.

And he assured me that if that went well, that I would receive something out

that job.

When my money was cut off, I received my sentence.

I ended up getting 64 months.

That was a long time to bear.

It was tough, almost a breaking point.

But Melina stayed close to me throughout the whole process.

And then one day, a couple guys coming down the hallway screaming.

Transfer meant basically you were going to be sent to another jail, sometimes

hundreds of miles away.

One of my biggest concerns was if I'm hours away, it would be impossible to

maintain a relationship with Melaina.

That night, right when I thought I was about to head towards the front exit of

the prison, they told me, no, that's not the right direction.

I'm thinking, where am I going?

It was the same guy that was there when I got arrested.

You're going to have to tell me the truth.

At that moment, he informed me that he was from the DEA office.

I am here to inform you that you are being extradited to the United States.

You're going to get 10 years.

I'm thinking 10 years.

I've been sentenced already. What is he talking about, 10 years?

I already got my sentence.

I've got voice recordings.

of you and Don on the phone talking about another operation.

He was accusing me of conspiracy to distribute cocaine while I was in jail.

I'm desperate.

I was torn to pieces.

I'm thinking, how could I maintain, you know, doing ten more years?

I didn't have my career. I didn't have my freedom.

I didn't have family.

I was going to be separated from the woman I loved.

Everything just kind of...

It became overwhelming, unbearable, and I remember getting on my knees.

God,

can you please help me?

At that point, I didn't know much about the Lord or what his expectations was.

I just thought that's the higher power, and that's probably the only person that

can help me in this situation.

A week later, I was sent to another jail.

And from there, I picked up a Bible.

As I began to read, the Bible became a mirror to me.

The love of money is the root of all evil.

Money got me in all type of evils.

Pride goeth before destruction.

Pride is what I had.

It's almost like the words from the pages would jump off.

you know, and penetrating inside of me, I began to learn different truths that

really changed the way I thought.

It developed a sense of peace inside of me.

I stayed in Columbia for 29 more months before I was extradited to the United

States.

By the time I got extradited, They told me they had captured Dom, and he was

arrested.

And he testified on my behalf and actually helped me achieve my freedom.

Throughout this journey, I can say that Dom was a friend.

You may have fights, disagreements, but the loyalty, I think that's more

important than anything.

So once I was released, Melina came to visit me in Georgia.

Thank you so much.

That's the first time we saw each other outside of prison.

I told her, I want you to be the woman, you know, for me for the rest of my

life.

So we got engaged to get married.

Before I was the man that was concerned about family.

I learned how to be more grateful for what I have.

The number one regret is that I have my son growing up now without his father's

presence.

And I'm working out now to legally get any access to my son because it's still

fight to get back into his life.