Matthew Cox | Inside True Crime Podcast
How Michael G. Santos Survived a 45-Year Prison Sentence
Mon, 18 Nov 2024
Michael G. Santos from Prison Professors.com share his story on how he overcame a 45 year prison sentence. Michael's Website https://prisonprofessors.com Follow me on all socials! Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/insidetruecrime/ TikTok: https://www.tiktok.com/@mattcoxtruecrime Do you want to be a guest? Send me an email here: [email protected] Do you want a custom "con man" painting to shown up at your doorstep every month? Subscribe to my Patreon: https: //www.patreon.com/insidetruecrime Do you want a custom painting done by me? Check out my Etsy Store: https://www.etsy.com/shop/coxpopart Listen to my True Crime Podcasts anywhere: https://anchor.fm/mattcox Check out my true crime books! Shark in the Housing Pool: https://www.amazon.com/dp/B0851KBYCF Bent: https://www.amazon.com/dp/B0BV4GC7TM It's Insanity: https://www.amazon.com/dp/B08KFYXKK8 Devil Exposed: https://www.amazon.com/dp/B08TH1WT5G Devil Exposed (The Abridgment): https://www.amazon.com/dp/1070682438 The Program: https://www.amazon.com/dp/B0858W4G3K Dude, Where's My Hand-Grenade? (waiting for KDP approval) Bailout: https://www.barnesandnoble.com/w/bailout-matthew-cox/1142275402 Checkout my disturbingly twisted satiric novel! Stranger Danger: https://www.amazon.com/dp/B0BSWQP3WX If you would like to support me directly, I accept donations here: Paypal: https://www.paypal.me/MattCox69 Cashapp: $coxcon69
Chapter 1: What led Michael Santos to a 45-year prison sentence?
So it was the right amount of money you could win is basically what my attorney told me. And I said, let's go. Later I went to prison and I became a reader and read about people that went through the Holocaust or people like Nelson Mandela or Viktor Frankl and Malcolm X and all these people that transformed their life while they were in prison. really gave me a pathway to make it.
And I had a path. And so I found ways to create a pathway to liberty, even while living in a high security penitentiary, which was exciting for me.
Chapter 2: How did Michael change his mindset while in prison?
hey this is matt cox and i appreciate you guys uh checking out the channel i am going to be doing an interview with michael santos and he is the youtube prison professor and he does uh uh videos uh in sorry videos he have podcasts in and that are connected to various prisons and he's got a really interesting story and i'm check out the video so what so listen so you did like
a ridiculous amount of time in prison. And so, yeah. Um, so what, so the, you know, what ended up getting you to this? What was your sentence?
So I, I made a, you know, just a series of really bad decisions as a kid. And when I, by the time all things were said and done, the judge sentenced me to 45 years in federal prison.
Damn. But that was under the old law where you were able to get parole, right?
Actually, yes, I was under the old law, but I went to trial. Jury convicted me of committing an 848. I think it's Title 21, Section 848, which is the Kingpin Statute. I was trafficking in cocaine. Long story behind that. But because I had the 848, that was one of the few sentences under the old law that was not eligible for parole. So I had a 45-year sentence. I served every day of that sentence.
And, you know, it's all good.
So you got... Okay, so... So with good time, how much time did you do in prison?
9,500 days. So 26 years. So yeah, under the old law, that's a good point. Most of the people that are listening to this are not going to be familiar with the whole evolution of prison reform movements and so on and so forth. When I was in prison, it was Ronald Reagan was in the White House. It was a fundamentally different era.
And they were transitioning from what's called the determinate sentencing system or an indeterminate sentencing system to determinate sentencing, which is new law and guidelines and things of that sort. Under the old law, a person could max out a 45-year sentence in 26 years as long as the person didn't
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Chapter 3: What pivotal moment influenced Michael's transformation?
sentencing. And I remember the prosecutor, what he said, he said, well, Michael Santos says he's going to change his life. But if he spends every day of his life in an all-consuming effort to repay society, and if he lives to be 300 years old, our society will still be at a significant net loss. And I'll always remember that sentence because it really brings clarity to where you're going.
You're going into an environment that obliterates hope and extinguishes the possibility for something better. But I had hope because Socrates gave me hope and he helped me believe that some kind of way I could reconcile and make amends. And my judge sentenced me to 45 years. And next thing I know, I'm going to a high security penitentiary. And that's how I started my life. But I had a path.
And that path was going to say, this is how I'm going to create my own liberty while I'm in here. And that path for me was a three-pronged approach. For one, I was going to focus on... on educating myself because I believed that if I was going to get anybody to believe in me while I'm in prison, I need to get an education.
And two, I needed to find a way to contribute to society in meaningful, measurable ways. And three, I need to find a way to build a strong support system. And if I could do that while I was going through prison, I believe I could find my way. And that's really what empowered me through the journey.
Okay. Yeah, I remember the story of Socrates. He ends up being sentenced. He doesn't die. He gets sentenced to like a home. They kind of send him to like a home confinement type thing, right? Then they end up not killing him.
No, he drinks the hemlock and he dies. Are you serious?
Okay, I definitely don't know this story.
So Socrates was a philosopher from 2,500 years ago in ancient Greece. And at that time, there was a class-based society and he was from the upper class. And it was against the law for people from his class to educate people from the lower classes because they wanted to enslave them. And they didn't want people to learn.
But Socrates believed that every human being had the power within to give meaning to life and to contribute. And so he would teach people. But that was against the law. So they arrested him. They went to trial. That's the trial of Socrates. He was convicted and he was sentenced to death and death by drinking hemlock. So he had to drink his own poison and kill himself. And that was the sanction.
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Chapter 4: How did education play a role in Michael's prison experience?
I'm going to apply that to your down payment too. So that when you get a mortgage, you've already got a down payment and you're secure because I can't sell it to you cheap. It'll ruin the comps in the neighborhood. And so he built these big developments. And so that's how I got started. He's still my business partner today, but I've done millions of dollars of deals with him.
And all of that started from a prison story. And all of my work is from a prison story. My clients right now are prison administrators. They pay me licensing fees to bring courses into prison. And all of it is really because
of what started after reading these inspiring people like Socrates or Mandela or Viktor Frankl or Malcolm X. And if I were in prison and I read your story, that would have inspired me. And so I just try to take that inside and help people see what their life can be regardless of what bad decisions they've made in the past.
And that's led to a number of businesses that have sustained me and allowed me to do what I really love doing, which is helping people in prison reach a higher potential. I really believe mass incarceration is one of the great social injustices of our time and more Americans need to know about it. And that's why I'm grateful to have an opportunity to speak on your true crime podcast, Joe.
Yeah, listen, you like...
you know i mean you know this being inside like there's so many people that they they build you know there's nothing wrong with building a life in prison you know i'm saying like they they do they build a life because you have to survive there for 10 or 20 years whatever it is but the part of that life you know has to be about getting out you know like the whole time i was there i was thinking i was planning on what i'm gonna do when i got out like it didn't go the way i planned
but you know you you you miss a hundred percent of the targets that you know you don't aim at so i mean so i'm i i didn't hit the exact target but you know without a plan at all you're just not you're gonna fail i mean and it's god i mean i'm shocked that like that like your business partner like wow that's that is that is amazing like that you know i want to say like
I want to say you got lucky, but boy, I'm sure you wrote a lot of letters. You know what I'm saying?
So that's an interesting concept, right? Luck, right? And people going to prison. And my audience is different from your audience. Your audience is probably never going to prison, right? They're interested in true crime. My audience are people that are in the worst period of their life. And my job is to show them how to build a pathway forward.
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Chapter 5: What strategies did Michael use to survive and thrive in prison?
He said, I learned how to paint while I was in prison and I'm painting these pictures that kind of depict the story from the projects to the penitentiary and I want to use it to try and bring awareness to what's going on and what's wrong with mass incarceration. And the guy says, I really like that. He said, are they for sale? He said, yeah. He says, I have 11 of them.
And the guy says, well, I'm going to take them all. And Alim says, well, they're $2,500 a piece. And the guy says, that's okay, I'll take them all. And the guy says, you're in San Francisco. He said, do you like basketball? And Alim says, yeah, I do. He said, how'd you like to go to the game with me, the Warriors game tonight? And Alim says, nah, I don't want to go to the Warriors game.
And the guy says, why not? He says, I don't like the Warriors. He says, well, who do you like? Alim says, I like the Lakers. He said, well, Lakers are coming to town in a couple of weeks. He said, how about I fly you out? You stay at my house. We'll go to the Lakers game together. Halim says, sure, I can do that. The guy says, great. He says, by the way, I own the Golden State Warriors.
The guy then, Halim comes out to his house. They go to the game. The guy says, you know, I want you to know where we're sitting here, right? This is billionaire's row right here. Everybody here is at the top of their game. So those athletes out there, they're the best in the world at what they do.
He said, now I wanted you to come here because I don't ever want you to be intimidated when you're around these kind of people. He said, these are your people. You went through prison and you became a good citizen. And you've learned how to contribute. He said, I want you to know, I'm a businessman. I'm not a charity case. I didn't buy those paintings from you out of charity.
I bought them because I think they're going to be more valuable in the future than you are today. And in his first year, Halim sold more than a million dollars worth of paintings. The Queen of England bought one of his paintings before she died. And he's even got a whole NFT line. And if you Google Halim Flowers, you will see what the best possible outcome for people who come out of prison.
And that's really my job is to try and help people see there's a better way than putting just people in prison and only focusing on the crime. A guy like Matthew Cox, I want to take his story and take it into prisons to inspire people that says, I want to be like Matthew Cox. And I want to be like Halim Flowers.
I want to be like Jaron Jordan, a former gang member who's now running one of the biggest nonprofits in New York. I'm going to be like, you know, I don't want to be like, I forgot that guy's name from the belly of the beast. You know that guy?
Belly of the Beast, no.
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