Feb. 23, 2026

Life As a Fugitive For Seven Years

Life As a Fugitive For Seven Years
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A simple dispute with a neighbor concluded with Bryce Berth on the run as a fugitive from the law for seven years.

Allegedly is a production of Voyage Media. The series is produced by Nat Mundel and Dan Benamor.

This episode was executive produced by Bryce Berth, based on his novel Through The Eyes Of The Eagle, available on Amazon: ⁠https://www.amazon.com/Through-Eyes-Eagle-Bryce-Berth/dp/1662414684⁠

Written and directed by Dan Benamor. Edited, sound designed, and mixed by James Scully. Original music by Derlis Gonzalez. Starring George Gallagher as Bryce and Annie Abrams as Meghan.

If you're enjoying the show, please leave us a 5-star review on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, or anywhere you're listening.

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Remember the Harrison Ford movie The Fugitive. Depending on your age,

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you might also remember the TV show starring David Jansen.

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The common factor between the two is an innocent man

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wrongly accused of a crime trying to maintain a low

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profile and find a way to clear his name while

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being on the run as a fugitive. In the series,

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Richard Kimball goes from town to town doing his best

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to blend in and not attract attention. Well, Brice Birth

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lived this life for real. He was a fugitive on

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the run for years. Almost as bizarrely as his story

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began with something so unjust, it ended with the seemingly

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divine restoration of justice.

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My wife and I were married, My children were fifteen, seventeen,

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and nineteen. We were living pretty much right in Beverly Hills,

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in the area of Pico and Robertson. I had my

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own business, construction and remodeling business. I had all the

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skilled trades mastered. Yeah, that was my life for a

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long long time. What happened was the very day we

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moved in, we were moving our belongings into the apartment.

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We had the lower apartment. She was occupying the upstairs

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as soon as we were unloading the truck, my wife

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was bringing her plants into the apartment. She set them

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on the front porch. She walked back to the truck,

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and when she came back to the porch, all her

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pots were smashed and broken, and the plants were destroyed

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all over the front porch. All of this took place

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within a matter of five minutes after we pulled up

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to the house. And so that was our first encounter.

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Bryce is referring to a female neighbor at his apartment building.

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We're not going to use her name.

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And then I had an occasion to find out that

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my hot water heater wasn't working in the house, and

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so my landlord said, well, look, she's got the key

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to the basement. That's where the hot water heater is.

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Would you mind going and checking it out, see what

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you can do. Get back to me. So I go

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up the stairs. The access to her place was really

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in the backyard along flight of stairs up to the

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second floor. So I walk up there. She opens the

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door and she's in a bathrobe, completely naked, and she

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flat out asked me, I want you to come in

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and be with me. I was just like, in total shock, dumbfounded,

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and my reaction was, Hey, I'm happily married. I don't

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even roll that way. I'm here to get the key

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to the basement, so on and so forth. So she

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gave me the key. I went checked it out and

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got back with the landlord. But it was right then

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that I realized what she was all about, and I

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told myself, I got a feeling this girl is going

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to be trouble. We moved in there. I believe it

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was in July of nineteen ninety seven, and the accusation

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for the truck was in November, so our four months.

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Four months. She confronted me multiple times. I mean, she

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framed my wife. I was not at home this one

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particular day. I was down at the track, running the track,

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and I come home and there are four police cars

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parked out at the curb in front of the department

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and they got my wife in handcuffed. I'm going, what's

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going on here? And I went and said, well, placed

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your wife under citizens arrest. And then the police came

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and cuffed her and threw in the back of the

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squad car. And I'm going why, And the eyewitness said, well,

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supposedly is claiming that your wife cut her garden hose,

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and I'm going, really, that's my garden hose, so why

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would she be cutting my garden hose? Basically lies to

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the cops. She's trying to get my wife in jail.

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In the subsequent months, there were many occasions where she

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tried to approach me in the front yard and say

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something to me. Probably later on in the summer, or

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probably in September October, there was an occasion where she

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approached me and she said, I am going to destroy

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your life. I'm going to make sure of it, and

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I laughed it off. We decided to leave LA and

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I rented a twenty six foot U haul truck and

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our destination was South Lake Jahoe. The night before we left,

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the truck was packed and our plan was to leave

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early in the morning. I observed her running around the

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truck with a notebook in her hand on a pen,

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writing down all kinds of stuff. What she was writing

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I had no idea, But again my eyebros were raised

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and my suspicions were confirmed that yeah, here comes the trouble.

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What she's doing I don't know. But so we leave

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in the morning and our first stop on the road

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for gas. Six guys approach the truck. They're packing heat.

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They're addressing me by my first name, and they're asking

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me all kinds of weird questions. I'm thinking, okay, all right,

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I get it. Something's up. I don't know what it is,

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but I'm being followed. So we get to South Lake Tahoe.

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I get a job. I get laid off right before Thanksgiving.

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The original truck out of LA. The plan was to

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drive it back to LA and then my buddy in

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LA and I were going to drive my wife's Mercedes

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back to South Lake Tahoe. So in Tahoe, I was

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supposed to take the truck back to LA. It wouldn't start.

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I had issues with it, so I called the rental

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facility in LA for the U haul truck. I told

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them what happened. They said, no worries. We have an

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affiliate there. We'll come and get it. So I have

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to rent another truck to go to my next destination,

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which was boise EO. I rent a twenty six foot

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Rider truck. The stipulation was a seven day time period,

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so we run an inclement weather. I have to call

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the Rider corporation get the contract modified. They modified it great.

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They gave me another seven days, more than enough time

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to get to Boise. We get to Boise right away,

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I get employment, my son and I go right to

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work doing some remodeling project. And the day before I

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was going to turn the truck in, we were working

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and my wife called me. She said, look, detectives from

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the Boise Police Department were here. They want to speak

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to you about a stolen truck out of LA. And

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I said, what, how can that be? We have contracts. Okay, Well,

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they want you to come down to the police station tomorrow.

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Talked to him, was like okay, So I go down there.

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The detective says to me, look, I have information out

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of LA that you stole a rental truck, a moving truck.

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I talked to a friend last night in LA. It's

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been confirmed that it is not a misdemeanor. It's a

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teleny and it's grand theft. AUTO did original truck that

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are read in LA the contract data. I'm going to

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Lake Lake, Tao, and then I'm bringing it back to LA.

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There wasn't a problem with that. I think what was

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in question here was the second truck that I rented

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out of South Lake Tahoe to Boise. The point is

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I had a contract for both rentals, so the accusation

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was that I had actually broken into the truck rent

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a lot, stole the truck, and I pulled a contract

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out of my pocket and I showed the detective. He

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snatches it out of my hand. He said, hey, I

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want you to speak into this tape recorder. He turns

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the tape recorder on. He said, I want you to

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admit that you stole that truck out of that lot.

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And I said, to you, out of your mind, why

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would I do that. Here's my contract, written contract. He said,

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you're under a restagrant theft auto. That was it. They

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did not show me a copy of any kind of complaint.

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As it turned out, there never was any requisition paperwork

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to establish probable cause. There was no evidence. There was

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nothing there. This was all happening because of what instigated

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initially out of la We figured this out later. What

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she did was she incorporated her liaisons who were cops

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from the west lapd who were friends, and used them

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to fabricate this whole story. Then they have people follow

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me and then they make phone calls and it's all

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based upon the acts that she has to crying with me,

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and everybody bought into it and believed it. There were

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no rules to play by it. They were going to

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do this. Did Bryce ask for a lawyer? As a

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matter of fact, after that arrest, in my first arraignment hearing,

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I obviously requested a public defender. Well he's a no show.

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He didn't even show up like he was supposed to.

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And there was another occasion where I requested a public defender,

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he didn't show up. I decided at that point, after

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all these attorneys weren't showing up, I was going to

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represent myself. I go before the judge and I say, look,

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there's no requisition paperwork established, probably because there's nothing here.

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I mean, due process isn't being followed. I got to

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go home. He said okay. He set what was called

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a second identification hearing, which is just a step in

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the whole process where they identify you as a subject

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in question. So we set another hearing for the thirtieth

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of January. I go home and I decided to call

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on the court and requests a third public defender. We

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had figured out that the process wasn't followed correctly. They

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claimed that there was a perfection hearing that took place,

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and it never did. And a perfection hearing is a

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hearing that takes place after an identification hearing. So if

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there were no identifications hearings, how could there be a

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perfection hearing. I called for an attorney. He calls me.

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We talked about the case. He said, I can get

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you out of this, and so we agreed to meet

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on the thirtieth of January in Boise. We were living

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in nordon I Hour at the time we traveled down

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to Boise. It turns out he's another no show and

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the original judge that was sitting on the bench that

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day presiding over my case. She was the original judge

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at the very first arraynment that threw the case out

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in the first place. However, at that time she allowed

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the discovery to commence. She's buying time for the requisition

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paperwork out of California to show up, and it never did.

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I get down to Boise, she's on the bench one

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thirty PM docket. She slams down the gavel and she said,

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put him under arrest. He's on a no bond hold.

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Get him out of here. That was it. So the

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case supposedly was dismissed, but here I am being arrested again.

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They put me in the hole for forty eight days

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in Boise. I go through all the beatings and so

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on and so forth, and then I get extradited. They

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fly me back to South Lake Tahoe. I'm extradited. I

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get back there. A trial data set for April fourth

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of nineteen ninety, about three weeks maybe four weeks before

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my trial date. I mean, at that point, the corruption

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was so out of control, and I was just like,

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you can't trust anybody, so you're going to have to

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represent yourself at your trial. By that point in the

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soil process, I had spent a lot of time studying law,

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court protocols. I felt confident to handle myself in a

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courtroom of law. Well. As a trial day draws closer,

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I started to think, even if you had a seasoned attorney,

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you're still running a risk. You don't know what a

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jury could finally decide. And I had to really think

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about that. You know, you got a family. It was

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at that point I decided I'm going to go on

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the run. I'm not even going to show up for

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my trial. They're going to fry me. They're going to

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load the jury box, They're not going to accept my

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witness select It was totally out of control. I decided

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to get a public defender, not to defend me at

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a trial, to get him to motion for a bond

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because I was in there on a no boho. I

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needed a bond. So I'm schmoozing this guy. He was

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a young attorney and I'm just making him feel like

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he was the greatest thing since Slice bread Man. He

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was buying into it, and his only concern was that

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I would become a flight risk if I bonded out

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and I've gone to run. I kept schmoozing, even getting

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him to trust me that I wouldn't do that. So

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he bought into it, and he got me a ten

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thousand dollars bond, and I'm going foo. I don't know

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if I can work with that. I don't know who

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I can ask for a thousand dollars to get me

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out of here. I asked him to go and do

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a second motion before the judge, get me down five thousand,

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and so he goes before the judge and he said,

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in your honor, I've counseled much with my client. I

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trust him. I don't believe he's going to be a

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flight risk. I think he'll return for his pre trial conference.

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Can we grant him a five thousand dollars bond? Sure enough,

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she grants a.

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Convict one two two six four nine fort to the

231
00:15:24.080 --> 00:15:26.039
visitors room, cell block two.

232
00:15:26.799 --> 00:15:35.320
That's you, waters hey, sweetheart.

233
00:15:35.679 --> 00:15:36.320
What happened?

234
00:15:36.639 --> 00:15:39.679
We got it down. Yeah, five thousand bonds. Just need

235
00:15:39.720 --> 00:15:41.120
to put out five hundred dollars.

236
00:15:41.679 --> 00:15:45.759
What happens, then I'm free for now forever?

237
00:15:48.519 --> 00:15:51.080
Okay, like I won't if you don't want me to.

238
00:15:52.000 --> 00:15:54.879
We know they're not going to let you go no

239
00:15:54.919 --> 00:15:56.000
matter what the truth is.

240
00:15:57.279 --> 00:15:58.080
I love you, baby.

241
00:15:59.120 --> 00:16:01.080
You're making me old before my time.

242
00:16:01.279 --> 00:16:05.519
Sorry. Shoot, at least you're never born, right.

243
00:16:05.480 --> 00:16:09.799
I wouldn't mind being bored after all this. Maybe one

244
00:16:09.879 --> 00:16:12.639
day I'll see you soon.

245
00:16:13.080 --> 00:16:20.120
Hi, sweetheart. So I pulled it off and I called

246
00:16:20.120 --> 00:16:22.960
a buddy of mine. I'd talked to you in twenty years.

247
00:16:23.320 --> 00:16:26.679
I said, Gary, get me out of here, and I said,

248
00:16:26.720 --> 00:16:29.919
I'll have you out of midnight. He called my stepdaughter.

249
00:16:30.399 --> 00:16:34.399
They worked out the details with the bondsman. At midnight.

250
00:16:34.440 --> 00:16:36.279
I was out of there. The next morning, I took

251
00:16:36.399 --> 00:16:39.639
my wife got me a flight and I flew back

252
00:16:39.720 --> 00:16:45.039
to Northern Idaho, and that is when I was officially

253
00:16:45.279 --> 00:17:00.720
on the run. Hello, it's me, baby.

254
00:17:01.440 --> 00:17:03.240
Couldn't have called a couple hours earlier.

255
00:17:04.119 --> 00:17:05.960
You know, I'd like to keep you on your toes.

256
00:17:06.720 --> 00:17:10.680
I was on my back in bed, dreaming of the

257
00:17:10.720 --> 00:17:13.200
things you're going to buy me once this is all over,

258
00:17:13.799 --> 00:17:14.920
to say thank you.

259
00:17:15.559 --> 00:17:19.799
Sure they still got the Hope diamond out there somewhere.

260
00:17:20.440 --> 00:17:23.799
I think it's at the Smithsonian'll break.

261
00:17:23.559 --> 00:17:25.400
In and steal it for you and think they can

262
00:17:25.400 --> 00:17:29.000
add it to my tab. Sarah for waking the.

263
00:17:28.960 --> 00:17:33.160
Out, baby, I wasn't really asleep. I can't sleep if

264
00:17:33.160 --> 00:17:34.200
I don't know you were okay?

265
00:17:34.920 --> 00:17:37.640
Oh boy, gotta go maybe?

266
00:17:37.839 --> 00:17:40.839
Why what's going on? What was that?

267
00:17:41.000 --> 00:17:41.640
It'll be okay?

268
00:17:42.039 --> 00:17:42.720
Is someone there?

269
00:17:43.759 --> 00:17:50.519
Pray for me? Sweetheart? I was no longer looking at

270
00:17:50.519 --> 00:17:54.319
the criminal justice system through rose covered glasses. Man. It

271
00:17:54.400 --> 00:17:58.400
was like, Hey, I've already earned my PhD in the

272
00:17:58.400 --> 00:18:02.519
corruption of the system. You have to make wholesale changes

273
00:18:02.599 --> 00:18:05.319
and everything that you do. You can't do the things

274
00:18:05.359 --> 00:18:08.640
that you normally would do that other people would normally do,

275
00:18:08.759 --> 00:18:10.319
like go get a beer and go out to dinner

276
00:18:10.359 --> 00:18:13.680
and drive your car and so on and so forth,

277
00:18:14.079 --> 00:18:17.039
and you have to realize that your life is now

278
00:18:17.200 --> 00:18:21.720
changed and you have to find way of living your life,

279
00:18:22.640 --> 00:18:29.720
negotiating through this scott of circumstance that you're in as

280
00:18:29.759 --> 00:18:33.640
a fugitive on the run. I certainly had to do

281
00:18:33.680 --> 00:18:36.799
that every step of the way. I mean, I couldn't

282
00:18:36.839 --> 00:18:40.119
relax in thought or strategy. It was a twenty four

283
00:18:40.160 --> 00:18:42.920
to seven thing, man, it was. I had to be

284
00:18:42.960 --> 00:18:45.319
on top of it. I had to think about how

285
00:18:45.359 --> 00:18:47.200
am I going to get work, how am I going

286
00:18:47.240 --> 00:18:50.039
to do this? What if this happens where we're going,

287
00:18:50.119 --> 00:18:53.839
what are we going to do? It was very, very.

288
00:18:53.400 --> 00:18:59.200
Difficult to do, making a risky situation even riskier. Bryce

289
00:18:59.240 --> 00:19:02.160
had a bad hab it of defending police officers.

290
00:19:05.240 --> 00:19:08.039
I had a friendship with a cop in Cleveland. My

291
00:19:08.200 --> 00:19:12.640
daughter knew him and introduced me to him, and I

292
00:19:12.759 --> 00:19:15.680
find out he's a beat cup that's his neighborhood and

293
00:19:16.240 --> 00:19:19.640
he walked it every day and we started having coffee

294
00:19:19.680 --> 00:19:23.079
and conversations, and pretty soon we were meeting every day

295
00:19:23.160 --> 00:19:28.680
at Starbucks having coffee. It's like, are you kidding me? Bryce?

296
00:19:29.240 --> 00:19:31.920
I can't believe you're doing this. My daughter gets really

297
00:19:31.960 --> 00:19:35.039
mad at me. She's dad, You're really crazy. There was

298
00:19:35.079 --> 00:19:39.759
another occasion where I'm moving next door to a cop.

299
00:19:40.319 --> 00:19:42.920
It's like, boy, Bryce, you can really pick him man.

300
00:19:44.240 --> 00:19:48.079
And as it turns out, this guy ended up really

301
00:19:48.160 --> 00:19:52.200
helping me. Scary as it was, he put his career

302
00:19:52.240 --> 00:19:55.039
on the line, put his life on the line, because

303
00:19:55.400 --> 00:19:58.759
in the way that he helped me, it was absolutely illegal.

304
00:19:59.319 --> 00:20:01.000
And he told me so, and he knew he could

305
00:20:01.039 --> 00:20:03.720
get in trouble, but he did it anyway because he

306
00:20:03.920 --> 00:20:05.839
liked me and my wife and the kids, and he

307
00:20:06.319 --> 00:20:09.119
knew there was something wrong, and he as a cop,

308
00:20:09.200 --> 00:20:11.279
he wanted to get to the bottom of it. And

309
00:20:11.319 --> 00:20:14.640
he had connections in Washington, d c. And the Justice Department,

310
00:20:15.720 --> 00:20:18.440
so he was all in to help me. And in fact,

311
00:20:18.519 --> 00:20:21.359
he took all my documentation after we talked, and he

312
00:20:21.559 --> 00:20:24.880
put me into the NCIC and we found out I

313
00:20:25.039 --> 00:20:29.200
was already convicted of this crime. I was already sentenced,

314
00:20:29.200 --> 00:20:32.880
and that was just it's like, oh, really, no kidding,

315
00:20:32.920 --> 00:20:35.799
when did this happen? So he saw right off the

316
00:20:35.839 --> 00:20:39.759
bat how corrup this was. And we're in Cleveland for

317
00:20:39.799 --> 00:20:42.480
a while. We're there for I don't know a year

318
00:20:42.559 --> 00:20:47.079
or two, and then we decided we had to leave

319
00:20:47.160 --> 00:20:51.000
there and we went to Maine, and then we went

320
00:20:51.039 --> 00:20:56.400
from Maine back to Cleveland, and then we went from

321
00:20:56.599 --> 00:20:58.440
Cleveland to Florida.

322
00:21:00.079 --> 00:21:03.200
How could someone live under this sort of pressure for

323
00:21:03.240 --> 00:21:03.839
so long?

324
00:21:04.079 --> 00:21:07.960
It was overwhelming. I not only had to look out

325
00:21:07.960 --> 00:21:11.319
for myself and pay attention, but I had a family.

326
00:21:11.880 --> 00:21:15.079
I had a wife and children in to I don't

327
00:21:15.119 --> 00:21:17.079
know how I did it to this day. When I

328
00:21:17.160 --> 00:21:21.599
took Amtrak from Seattle to Cleveland on a fact finding mission,

329
00:21:22.359 --> 00:21:26.119
because we knew we were going there within an hour,

330
00:21:26.200 --> 00:21:28.240
I had a job. I was the kind of guy

331
00:21:28.279 --> 00:21:31.839
that was like, there's no windows of time, there are

332
00:21:31.839 --> 00:21:35.279
no excuses allowed. Man, I don't know what you're going

333
00:21:35.359 --> 00:21:37.000
to do and how you're going to do it, but

334
00:21:37.359 --> 00:21:38.920
you got to do it, and you're going to do it.

335
00:21:38.960 --> 00:21:40.519
You're not going to take no for an answer. That

336
00:21:40.640 --> 00:21:44.559
was my mentality. No matter what whether we were moving

337
00:21:44.599 --> 00:21:48.559
into a place, everything you did, you were stepping out

338
00:21:49.279 --> 00:21:52.920
on a lily pad of faith and trust that things

339
00:21:52.920 --> 00:21:53.799
are going to be okay.

340
00:21:54.960 --> 00:21:58.279
The constant for Bryce was the incredible faith and loyalty

341
00:21:58.400 --> 00:22:02.680
of his wife.

342
00:22:02.960 --> 00:22:05.559
First time I ever met her, You know there was

343
00:22:05.559 --> 00:22:07.680
a connection there, and we fell in love with each other.

344
00:22:07.759 --> 00:22:13.039
And truthfully, if you had to describe our personalities, we

345
00:22:13.079 --> 00:22:18.799
could be classified as radical different. We had a spiritual

346
00:22:18.799 --> 00:22:22.440
connection that was pretty sound. We understood each other really well.

347
00:22:22.480 --> 00:22:26.200
We got along and we were really tight, very spiritually

348
00:22:26.240 --> 00:22:32.279
sound woman. This was her second marriage and mine, and

349
00:22:32.359 --> 00:22:35.759
so she brought two of her children into the marriage,

350
00:22:36.640 --> 00:22:40.039
and then we had two between us. But she had

351
00:22:40.079 --> 00:22:43.240
been through a lot of tragedies such as this. She

352
00:22:43.359 --> 00:22:47.279
was pretty seasoned, and she was pretty privy to how

353
00:22:47.359 --> 00:22:50.799
things really work and what was really going on out

354
00:22:50.799 --> 00:22:54.839
there spiritually and otherwise. That's the kind of person she was.

355
00:22:54.880 --> 00:22:57.920
And if she really loved you and she was committed

356
00:22:57.920 --> 00:23:00.359
to a cause, she was going to ride that to

357
00:23:00.400 --> 00:23:05.480
the end. She's a Taurus. I'm a Taurus, as she

358
00:23:05.640 --> 00:23:09.640
always said, you know, once a Taurus finds the diamond

359
00:23:09.680 --> 00:23:12.240
in the rough, they're like a pit bow. They're not

360
00:23:12.279 --> 00:23:14.640
gonna let go. And that's the kind of woman she was.

361
00:23:14.720 --> 00:23:20.839
And she had a great sense of humor, rarely rattled

362
00:23:20.880 --> 00:23:25.400
in the face of adversity. She was gonna win and

363
00:23:25.440 --> 00:23:27.960
she was going to prove it. She was all about

364
00:23:28.039 --> 00:23:34.240
truth and she hated injustice. Truth was everything to her

365
00:23:34.319 --> 00:23:37.400
no matter what. And you know, quite frankly, my children

366
00:23:37.440 --> 00:23:41.880
were the same way. We weren't a normal family. We

367
00:23:41.920 --> 00:23:45.920
had been through so much, we'd seen so much. It's like, hey,

368
00:23:46.160 --> 00:23:49.480
we're seasoned veterans man, We're used to this. This is

369
00:23:49.480 --> 00:23:54.039
gonna be no problem. We're gonna make it. As scary

370
00:23:54.400 --> 00:24:00.319
as it was, as tragic as it was many times

371
00:24:00.640 --> 00:24:03.440
when I look at my kids today and I realized

372
00:24:04.240 --> 00:24:07.400
their whole teenage life was taking from them. They never

373
00:24:07.440 --> 00:24:10.160
got a quality education because we were on the run.

374
00:24:10.680 --> 00:24:12.559
We had to bolt, we had to do this, we

375
00:24:12.599 --> 00:24:16.240
had to do that. But their character and their integrity

376
00:24:16.319 --> 00:24:20.519
really rose to the top. Interestingly enough, years later they

377
00:24:20.839 --> 00:24:22.640
came to my wife and I and said, you know,

378
00:24:23.400 --> 00:24:25.960
this was really bad. It was really horrible. It was

379
00:24:26.039 --> 00:24:29.279
really tragic, But you know what, we really got an

380
00:24:29.400 --> 00:24:34.200
education on life. We really did as a father, Yeah,

381
00:24:34.279 --> 00:24:37.440
I feel bad, and I apologized to him. I couldn't

382
00:24:37.440 --> 00:24:39.200
be the father to him that I should have been,

383
00:24:39.319 --> 00:24:41.000
or I wanted to be, or I could have been.

384
00:24:41.599 --> 00:24:44.880
But at the end of the day, without them and

385
00:24:45.039 --> 00:24:48.920
their savvy and their integrity and their guts and their

386
00:24:49.000 --> 00:24:51.720
willingness to win. I may not have made it.

387
00:24:52.839 --> 00:24:56.440
Eventually, as the years went by, Rice wore down.

388
00:24:57.720 --> 00:25:00.319
I had changed my whole attitude about this thing, and

389
00:25:01.119 --> 00:25:03.079
I'm now looking at like, well, hey, if you already

390
00:25:03.160 --> 00:25:06.079
convicted me, and you've sentenced me proved that the court

391
00:25:06.119 --> 00:25:08.279
of loss, so let's get on with it. I'm ready

392
00:25:08.319 --> 00:25:12.039
to roll the dice. So whatever happens happens. That doesn't

393
00:25:12.079 --> 00:25:14.680
mean to say that I quit paying attention or I

394
00:25:14.720 --> 00:25:18.119
wasn't thinking about things all the time. I was. When

395
00:25:18.119 --> 00:25:21.640
we got to Florida, I started to change my strategy.

396
00:25:22.319 --> 00:25:25.200
I won't say that I got careless. Let's put it

397
00:25:25.240 --> 00:25:28.960
this way. I was so comfortable with my position, and

398
00:25:29.039 --> 00:25:32.440
I was determined to go the rest of my life

399
00:25:32.640 --> 00:25:36.039
as a fugitive on the run. And I was really confident,

400
00:25:36.440 --> 00:25:39.920
really smart. At that point. I was convinced I had

401
00:25:39.920 --> 00:25:42.920
the system figured out, and I was ready to live

402
00:25:42.960 --> 00:25:46.039
the rest of my life that way. So, as it

403
00:25:46.079 --> 00:25:49.720
turns out, they catch up with me in Florida, I

404
00:25:49.759 --> 00:25:54.839
get incarcerated, and then I get extradited back to South

405
00:25:55.000 --> 00:25:59.319
lake townholl ten day extradition ride, which I have classified

406
00:25:59.359 --> 00:26:03.680
as the most unforgivable and unforgettable ride in my life.

407
00:26:03.920 --> 00:26:09.839
It was absolutely horrible. So on the extradition ride, I

408
00:26:09.960 --> 00:26:12.319
was at the end of my robe. I couldn't really

409
00:26:12.359 --> 00:26:14.759
take it anymore. I mean, come on, it's been seven

410
00:26:14.759 --> 00:26:17.319
and a half years. I'm burned out. This is out

411
00:26:17.359 --> 00:26:20.039
of control. I mean, I'm an innocent man. Come on.

412
00:26:20.680 --> 00:26:24.359
And so I decided that I was going to plead

413
00:26:24.400 --> 00:26:26.200
guilty when I got there.

414
00:26:31.519 --> 00:26:36.000
Hi, hey, baby, what's the lawyers say?

415
00:26:36.559 --> 00:26:37.799
They got a million dollar bill?

416
00:26:37.880 --> 00:26:40.319
In my head, you should tell that judge to make

417
00:26:40.319 --> 00:26:44.839
it ten million or five trillion. We'd have justice good

418
00:26:44.880 --> 00:26:49.400
of odds of making bail. Hey, now that what are

419
00:26:49.400 --> 00:26:49.960
you going to do?

420
00:26:52.440 --> 00:26:53.400
I'm done?

421
00:26:54.000 --> 00:26:54.799
What does that mean?

422
00:26:54.880 --> 00:26:58.599
I'm pleading guilty. I tell you to leave me and

423
00:26:58.680 --> 00:27:01.400
find someone else. If I thought there was any chance

424
00:27:01.440 --> 00:27:01.920
you listen.

425
00:27:02.799 --> 00:27:06.799
As long as I'm breathing, I'm yours. They can't take

426
00:27:06.839 --> 00:27:07.559
you away from me.

427
00:27:09.319 --> 00:27:12.799
I'll see. Yeah, this is over. I'm one way or another.

428
00:27:15.039 --> 00:27:15.960
But something changed.

429
00:27:16.319 --> 00:27:21.160
After all these years, Brice finally met a competent attorney.

430
00:27:21.920 --> 00:27:27.640
I walk in. There stands this attorney. This guy, he said,

431
00:27:27.680 --> 00:27:30.559
I'm your new attorney. So and so doesn't want to

432
00:27:30.559 --> 00:27:33.839
take your case. She handed it to me. I am

433
00:27:33.880 --> 00:27:38.680
the lead public defender here in the prosecutor's office. I've

434
00:27:38.720 --> 00:27:42.759
looked at your case. You are an innocent man. I

435
00:27:42.799 --> 00:27:44.319
know I can get you out of it if you're

436
00:27:44.359 --> 00:27:48.799
willing to trust me. And I said, that's all. Well,

437
00:27:48.839 --> 00:27:52.599
I'm good, and I gave my reasons why I wanted

438
00:27:52.599 --> 00:27:55.599
to plead guilty, which was all about getting it over with,

439
00:27:56.480 --> 00:28:01.319
getting the criminal aspect of a dealt with assuming civil litigation.

440
00:28:02.759 --> 00:28:04.279
He tried to talk me out of it, but I

441
00:28:04.279 --> 00:28:07.279
wouldn't do it. Finally he said, okay, I have to

442
00:28:07.319 --> 00:28:09.720
honure your request. He said, let's go forward with it.

443
00:28:10.240 --> 00:28:14.279
So we get in the courtroom and I sit down

444
00:28:14.279 --> 00:28:16.440
and there's a guy sitting next to me, and he's

445
00:28:17.200 --> 00:28:20.200
my attorney. Walks up and addresses em and greets him

446
00:28:20.240 --> 00:28:23.440
good morning, and so it appears to me that these

447
00:28:23.440 --> 00:28:28.519
two know each other and they're colleagues. Heads off to

448
00:28:28.599 --> 00:28:32.359
the front of the courtroom, behind the bench, behind closed

449
00:28:32.400 --> 00:28:34.759
doors and shuts the door, and I'm thinking, where is

450
00:28:34.799 --> 00:28:38.119
he going, what's he doing? In the meantime, I'm trying

451
00:28:38.160 --> 00:28:41.960
to fill out the pleague paperwork, and this attorney grabs

452
00:28:42.000 --> 00:28:44.640
the pen out of my hand. And I said, what

453
00:28:44.680 --> 00:28:47.119
are you doing? Who are you And he said, I

454
00:28:47.240 --> 00:28:50.599
want to Rick's colleagues. I'm also an attorney. You're not

455
00:28:50.720 --> 00:28:54.200
filing anything out because I know what Rick's doing. And

456
00:28:54.240 --> 00:28:56.640
I said, what are you talking about it. I said,

457
00:28:56.640 --> 00:29:00.480
I'm pleading guilty. He said, well, that's fine. You just

458
00:29:00.519 --> 00:29:06.559
sit tight. Man. Time's just dragging on and I'm sweating bullets.

459
00:29:06.599 --> 00:29:09.319
It's like, come on, judge, you just come out here

460
00:29:09.319 --> 00:29:11.599
and get on the bench and give me a chance

461
00:29:11.640 --> 00:29:14.599
to ender my play. Let's get out of us. It

462
00:29:14.680 --> 00:29:17.799
must have been thirty forty minutes. I'm just like, oh,

463
00:29:17.839 --> 00:29:20.440
come on. All of a sudden, here it comes to

464
00:29:20.480 --> 00:29:23.880
my attorney and he walks down the aisle right in

465
00:29:23.880 --> 00:29:27.519
front of me. He gets nose to nose with me,

466
00:29:28.519 --> 00:29:31.480
and he throws his arms around me, and he said, Price,

467
00:29:32.119 --> 00:29:36.680
it's all over. You're going home to Cleveland today. What

468
00:29:37.640 --> 00:29:40.640
he said, Yeah, the judge has closed the books on

469
00:29:40.680 --> 00:29:43.240
your case. He doesn't ever want to see you when

470
00:29:43.279 --> 00:29:47.480
his courtroom again. You're out of here. It's the only

471
00:29:47.519 --> 00:29:51.160
thing he wants. Under California statute, because you didn't show

472
00:29:51.200 --> 00:29:54.200
up for your trial, you're looking at a felony FTA

473
00:29:54.640 --> 00:29:58.480
failure to appear. Go back to Cleveland, do six months

474
00:29:58.519 --> 00:30:02.680
supervised probation. I'll check it out. Give it all checks out,

475
00:30:03.079 --> 00:30:06.880
I'll come back in superior court here in California. It'll

476
00:30:06.920 --> 00:30:12.119
be over. And that's how it played out. I'm ball

477
00:30:12.200 --> 00:30:15.039
in my eyes up. I mean, you can imagine seven

478
00:30:15.079 --> 00:30:17.759
and a half years, all this I've gone through, and

479
00:30:17.799 --> 00:30:20.720
it's finally over. I'm going I just couldn't believe it.

480
00:30:23.119 --> 00:30:26.039
We walk out of the courtroom, arm in arm and

481
00:30:26.440 --> 00:30:29.559
that was it. Next day, I caught a bus to

482
00:30:29.640 --> 00:30:34.640
Cleveland and there's my wife in downtown Cleveland at the

483
00:30:34.640 --> 00:30:44.680
bus station. Nah, tell them to take you back to jail.

484
00:30:46.319 --> 00:30:50.039
I need about a two week now, are you interested.

485
00:30:50.640 --> 00:30:53.640
I've gotten so used to having more space in the bed.

486
00:30:55.440 --> 00:30:59.279
We'll buy a bigger bed. What do we do now?

487
00:31:00.240 --> 00:31:10.400
Anything we want? I've forgotten how to. Let's remember together,

488
00:31:12.519 --> 00:31:15.400
we just walked arm in arm into the sunset of

489
00:31:15.559 --> 00:31:21.000
this nightmare and it was over. That's it.

490
00:31:27.839 --> 00:31:31.720
Allegedly is a production of Voyage Media. The series is

491
00:31:31.720 --> 00:31:36.079
produced by Nap Mondel and Dan Benemore. This episode was

492
00:31:36.119 --> 00:31:39.799
executive produced by Bryce Birth based on his novel Through

493
00:31:39.799 --> 00:31:42.720
the Eyes of the Eagle available on Amazon. A link

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00:31:42.839 --> 00:31:47.240
is in the show notes. Written and directed by Dan Benemore, edited,

495
00:31:47.359 --> 00:31:51.759
sound designed and mixed by James Scully. Original music by

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00:31:51.799 --> 00:31:56.160
Derls Gonzalez. Starring George Gallagher as Bryce and Annie Abrams

497
00:31:56.240 --> 00:31:59.599
iss Meghan. If you're enjoying the show, please leave us

498
00:31:59.599 --> 00:32:02.680
a five star review on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, or anywhere

499
00:32:02.680 --> 00:32:05.559
you're listening, and subscribe now for future episodes