Erico Montalvo grew up in Rhode Island without a father in the picture and a mother too consumed by the streets to be present — and by the time the system found him he had already cycled through juvenile detention multiple times and built an identity that the streets had shaped long before he was old enough to understand where that path was going. In this episode of Locked In with Ian Bick, he shares what happened just days after he turned 18 — an accidental altercation with a veteran that turned into a self-defense situation that ended in the veteran's death — and what being charged with murder instead of recognized as a victim of circumstance actually produced over the ten years he spent fighting his case from inside a Rhode Island county jail before finally taking a manslaughter plea deal and accepting a 13 year sentence.

Rich Morgan graduated from the New York College of Osteopathic Medicine in 1998, completed his residency at NYU Rusk Medical Center in 2002, and had everything a decade of medical school and training was supposed to produce — until a common dental procedure exposed him to opioids and changed the direction of everything he had spent his career building. In this episode of Locked In with Ian Bick, he shares what the ten year opioid addiction that followed that dental procedure actually looked like, what writing fraudulent prescriptions to pharmacies to fuel his addiction and eventually selling prescriptions to drug dealers actually involved, what getting caught after a customer cooperated with the government actually felt like, and what being sentenced to 168 months in federal prison as a doctor — and navigating the federal system as a Jewish inmate — actually required of him before he was finally ready to rebuild what the addiction and the federal system had taken.

Eli44 grew up in Texas, took to the streets at a young age, did his first bid in the Texas Department of Corrections where he joined the Tango Blasts, and then caught a nearly 15 year federal sentence that sent him into federal medium security facilities and federal penitentiaries where he spent nearly a decade navigating the gang politics, the violence, and the disciplinary transfers that define life as a Tango Blast inside the federal system. In this episode of Locked In with Ian Bick, he shares what being a Tango Blast inside the federal system actually looks like — the rules, the politics, the violence, and the specific survival mindset that nearly 10 years inside some of the most brutal federal facilities in the country required of him — and what finally getting out and turning his life completely around actually took after everything those years produced.

PG Sittenfeld grew up in Ohio in a good family, went to Princeton, worked in nonprofits, and eventually built a three term career on Cincinnati City Council before an unexpected FBI indictment for bribery and extortion — built around an undercover operation he argues never should have produced charges — derailed everything he had spent his career building at the exact moment he was running for mayor. In this episode of Locked In with Ian Bick, he shares what the FBI indictment actually looked like, what going to trial and losing some counts actually felt like, what the 16 month sentence and the four months he served inside federal prison actually required of him, and what eventually getting out for appeal, losing that appeal, receiving a pardon from Donald Trump, and then having the Supreme Court rule in his favor actually produced in terms of what he now understands about the federal justice system and the people who run it.

Bill Courtney grew up the son of an NYPD cop, followed his father's footsteps onto the force in the mid-1980s, and spent his career working DEA task forces taking down cartel traffickers in New York City before the rise of rap and the specific world where organized crime and the music industry collided became the defining chapter of everything he did behind the badge. In this episode of Locked In with Ian Bick, he shares what working DEA cartel cases in New York City really looked like, what the rise of rap in the 1980s and 1990s produced in terms of street violence and organized crime, what investigating the 50 Cent shooting actually involved, and what the investigation that eventually took down Kenneth Supreme McGriff — one of the most feared and most connected figures in New York street and hip hop history — actually required of the detectives who built it. He also opens up about flipping informants, making deals, the Murder Inc investigation, and the complete truth about corruption inside the music industry that most people who followed those stories from the outside never heard described honestly from the detective who worked them.