February 19, 2021 • 34 mins
Payne goes deep down the rabbit hole exploring Nacoe Brown’s claims about the missing money, and he’s inspired and confounded at what he finds.
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Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:04):
Somebody Somewhere is a production of Rainstream Media Incorporated. This
podcast investigates the unsolved death of federal prosecutor Jonathan Luna
in two thousand and three. It is a true story,
but the opinions of the hosts and interviewees are simply
that opinions, not facts, and the credibility of the witnesses
and what they say is to be determined by the listener.
(00:27):
Everyone is presumed innocent until proven otherwise in a court
of law. Previously on Somebody Somewhere.
Speaker 2 (00:40):
Ravenel's accused of helping his client, a drug dealer, and
others in a criminal conspiracy.
Speaker 3 (00:46):
He he literally bought another bree case. This is a
major league drug trafficking case. This wasn't small local, This
was nationwide.
Speaker 4 (00:56):
May I own a non own joke about that, because
I think you know that was there.
Speaker 2 (01:00):
The initial inclination of the US Attorney's office was somebody
from this case.
Speaker 4 (01:04):
Had something to do with Jonathan not showing up.
Speaker 3 (01:07):
Well, come on, no one with a fucking pen nice?
Come on, Ain't nobody buying that bullshit?
Speaker 5 (01:14):
This is episode seventh of season three Naco of Nazareth.
I'm your host, David Payne. It's been ten years since
the federal prosecutor was found deadnand Boro and Lecaester County.
Speaker 6 (01:35):
We will find out who did this.
Speaker 2 (01:37):
Was he trying to stage some sort of attack and
went too far.
Speaker 5 (01:54):
It's been five months since I started my research into
Jonathan Luna's death, and I was hopelessly stuck in a
honeypot of conflicting theories. I had tracked down the actors
in the so called missing money case, and the explosive
claims by Naco that maybe his lawyer had taken the
money and that maybe Jonathan got caught up in it
(02:14):
and maybe that led to his death were waking me
up in the middle of the night. Although the court
system was not going to give them their due, and
while I would typically discount them as well, I needed
to know more about Naco to judge his and their credibility,
and so I'm going to need to ask you for
some rope here as we take a slight detour this episode,
(02:37):
see if you can strip away your preconceptions of the
bank robber label as you assess the full measure of
this man. For unlike Ken Ravenel, Naco Brown is not
searching for character references from the brothers around him. He
seeks his from a father above.
Speaker 4 (02:58):
My name is Doyle Lee. I'm from Lexington, Kentucky.
Speaker 7 (03:03):
I just turned forty nine years old on April of
twenty seventh. My grandfather was a prominent pastor here.
Speaker 5 (03:11):
Doyle Lee is a second generation p K, a pastor's kid,
and one of several people I talked to about Naco.
Speaker 7 (03:19):
Well, I can tell you that I would have to
consider him more than a friend.
Speaker 4 (03:24):
I actually referenced him as my spiritual father.
Speaker 6 (03:27):
Tell me about the first time you met him and
how that came about.
Speaker 7 (03:32):
I don't know if you know the dynamics of entering
into a new prison facility, but I had transferred to
and I wanted to attach myself to the church, and
so in prison, of course, you know, it's different type
of sex. I mean, you got your gags, and you
got your homies, and you got your racisms and different
things going on. But I wanted to be a part
(03:54):
of the church. So I was told that, you know,
we got a guy on the compound.
Speaker 6 (03:59):
You know you need to When I first talked to
you yesterday the day before, and I brought up Niko's name,
you had a very visceral reaction.
Speaker 7 (04:08):
I'm almost incapable of putting it into words. How God
has been able to use one person to be able
to change atmosphere, change culture. This is the things that
really had impressed me. Again, I grew up around the
church of my whole life, but he actually, through God's help,
gave me something that I could give to somebody else
(04:30):
that could help them apply to their current situation, to
themselves and see change beginning to come in.
Speaker 5 (04:37):
Like I mentioned, Lee's reverence for his friend and spiritual mentor,
was born of hard scrabble circumstances and a shared set
of bad choices.
Speaker 7 (04:52):
I grew up with a basketball background slash religious background.
I went on to play college basketball out in Mexico
at the New Mexico Military Institute. Didn't like it there
as a result, quit school, came home, ended up having
a child, and at that point began to dab into
(05:16):
the criminal lifestyle drug dealing. Went to prison in nineteen
ninety eight for ten years, came out trying to do
the right thing, and then recidivated in two thousand and ten,
and at that point, after sentencing, I was sent to
prison in wels West Virginia and this.
Speaker 4 (05:37):
Is where I met Naco Brown. And you know, one of.
Speaker 5 (05:41):
The things about and that meeting would be transformational for Lee.
Speaker 7 (05:45):
And what Nico was able to introduce me to when
it came to change is change had to be centered
around a set of principles that come from the Kingdom
of God, and that when we acknowledged those principles and
begin to apply those principles, then you can get the
fruit and the results of changing.
Speaker 6 (06:02):
So you grew up in a church, so you had
that church background, but for whatever reason, it didn't stick
with you as a young man. What was it about
what he did that kind of turned the switch?
Speaker 4 (06:16):
What he was able to do was connect the dots.
Speaker 7 (06:19):
I knew that there was something missing, not that I
didn't believe, but there was something missing, and he was
able to help me address what was going on internally.
As a matter of fact, I thank God for Naco,
and had I not met him, I would probably still
be chasing my tails like a doll.
Speaker 5 (06:42):
And if it were just Lee that Naco had talked
into going down a different path, that would be something,
although perhaps not all that spectacular. But as I would learn,
Nico created a spiritual development program that he rolled out
in every facility he served time in offer.
Speaker 7 (07:00):
And talked about how he meant to me but to
see the impact that he's had on men that were unchurched,
and how he was able to help us become free
because no one had ever told us.
Speaker 4 (07:14):
And I remember him saying this un quoting him here,
that you could.
Speaker 7 (07:18):
Be free on the outside of prison, but still be
locked up on the inside. And so God gave him
a curriculum, and he absolutely showed me how to become
free on the inside, and we begin to spiritually develop
these men, and the administration came to him, and the
(07:38):
administrative staff beginning to see results in the men that
he was teaching and mentoring. As a matter of fact,
to the point where the Bureau of Prisons adopted the
curriculum and made it a part of their transitional courses.
And almost over about two thousand menes graduated from this.
(08:00):
I mean, you're talking about changing a whole compound.
Speaker 5 (08:08):
According to Lee, Nicico's spiritual development program wasn't just aimed
at people ready to hear the good book, nor was
it merely empty words.
Speaker 7 (08:17):
And if you could just see how impactful that Niko was,
I seen countless lives change. I seen, you know, men
who had not been in contact with family members things
begin to be re established. I've seen supernatural healing take
place for the men there, and I've seen so many
(08:40):
miraculous things.
Speaker 4 (08:42):
Happening in the court system. The list goes on and on.
Speaker 5 (08:46):
And it wasn't just the inmates who felt the influence
of Nico Brown.
Speaker 7 (08:50):
When we was at the facility in West Virginia, just
so happened. We were waiting on a warden to come there,
and when the warden did arrive there and she's seen Nako,
she stopped what she was doing and told the chaplaincy
to get with him. Get with this guy right here.
Whatever he has to say, follow what he says. And
(09:12):
so I've seen over and over again during times of
gang violence, when the tension was high, that the administration
would come to have him to.
Speaker 4 (09:20):
Talk to, maybe the heads of gangs.
Speaker 7 (09:23):
The auditoriums when Naco would speak would be wall to walk.
I'm talking about from every culture, white, Hispanic, the gang members,
the Arians, the Muslims, and and radical every facet of
group would come. I'm talking about former real life mob
figures would sit down and talk with this man, and
(09:46):
he would be able to enlighten.
Speaker 5 (09:51):
Now I can almost hear some of you rolling your eyes,
thinking that Doyle Lee's testimony about Naco is a little
over the top and it's frank natural to employ a
skeptics ear to his story. But remember this, the people
in the federal prison system are likely far more skeptical
than you will ever be. Something another one of Nako's
(10:12):
fellow inmates, Antonio eSPI, reminded me of in a way
that only esbe.
Speaker 2 (10:17):
Could because hey, man, everybody had their eye on him
to see, hey, this is really a man of God.
Speaker 3 (10:24):
You know what I'm trying to see? In in hiccups
were looking for it. We imprison them. I shoot, I
will crook, you'll crook, He'll crook. Everybody to crook.
Speaker 2 (10:32):
Your prisons were trying to see, Okay, what's your angle here, brother,
what's really going on? But he had none, He had
no angle whatsoever.
Speaker 3 (10:40):
You know, it was all about God.
Speaker 5 (10:46):
Like Doyle Lee, Espie's path to prison was a predictable
one given his circumstances and choices, but his path out
following his interactions with Naco Brown was anything.
Speaker 2 (10:57):
But See, no one actually knows what's the point of
a man's life other than a man.
Speaker 3 (11:02):
Can't nobody tell this story better than him?
Speaker 2 (11:05):
And you know it. Even though I tell you know
how my life was when I met, they go the
story behind that though. Now me coming from the streets
selling drugs, robbery, doing pretty much anything and everything on
the street. Now the whole time, understanding that while I'm
going through this, man, I'm sending my family through hell
(11:26):
and high water because I'm married, I have children, So
I'm selling drugs and then I'm out there robbing people.
Speaker 3 (11:34):
Then I still have to come home.
Speaker 2 (11:36):
Now I'm gonna bring all that that I done did
in them streets.
Speaker 4 (11:39):
To my house.
Speaker 3 (11:40):
So my family is in danger. Little did they know
when we go all the groceries, I got a gun
on me because I did so much dirt in the street.
Speaker 2 (11:48):
Man ain't gonna tell them when somebody gonna want they
revenge while I'm with my family.
Speaker 3 (11:53):
So when I say, by the time, God said.
Speaker 2 (11:56):
You know what, I'm gonna send you to prison, and
I got somebody that gonna give you some Really, He's
gonna father you and gonna train you in the area
that you need to be trained in.
Speaker 3 (12:04):
Man, that was right on time. Now I'm a minister.
I'm a minister and I preach at a church. Did
I see it back then? Did Joseph see it back then?
Speaker 4 (12:13):
No?
Speaker 3 (12:14):
I had to go through the storm. I had to
go through the fire.
Speaker 2 (12:16):
And what God did in the fire was hey burn
everything off of me that needed to be burned off
of me. So therefore, when I came out, I was
shying from the prison to the palist.
Speaker 5 (12:31):
Antonio Espi's transformation from a doubting Thomas drug dealer to
a praise the Lord preacher didn't happen overnight, But looking
back on it now, he believes that meeting Nako was
all preordained.
Speaker 3 (12:45):
Yeah, it's crazy.
Speaker 2 (12:46):
You know, when I met him, it was a time
in my life where, you know, I was really trying
to transition on, trying to get my life better, right,
and something happened before I actually got to prison. I
was looking at a term of thirty to life, you
know what I'm saying. That's before I went to trial
or anything. And I'm inside of a bar. A guy
(13:09):
came up to me when I was shooting pools, and
the guy stopped in front of me. He hold up
seven fingers and he told me. He said, God told
me to tell you seven years.
Speaker 3 (13:19):
And I was like, what he told me? He repeated it,
God told me to tell you seven years.
Speaker 2 (13:24):
And so I just bust out crying and started hunting
a guy. Now, mind you, now I'm looking at.
Speaker 3 (13:29):
Thirty to life.
Speaker 2 (13:30):
So I end up going to trial. Being hard headed,
I took it all the way to trial and I
ended up getting seventeen and.
Speaker 4 (13:36):
A half years.
Speaker 2 (13:37):
So fast forward. I got locked up in two thousand
and two.
Speaker 3 (13:42):
When I meet Nako, it's two thousand and nine. That's
seven years. And I told him the story.
Speaker 2 (13:49):
And he was like, hey, well, it's not by chance
that we meet. And I'm telling him this is my
seventh year, and I'm telling him, well, I'm getting.
Speaker 3 (13:55):
Ready to get out of jail. I'm going to get
out of prison. He was saying, hey, that ain't what
God has with me.
Speaker 2 (14:01):
I realized on down the road the reason I met Niko,
it wasn't that I was gonna get out physically, but
I was gonna get free spiritually. And Nako just happened
to be the individual of that God allowed me to
meet at my seventh year.
Speaker 5 (14:24):
And for those of you who know your Bible. You
know that seven years has historical significance in the story
of Joseph and the Technicolor dream Coade. Joseph was the
youngest and favorite son of a wealthy Jewish farmer who
was sold into slavery by his brothers and later rose
to power as the Egyptian king's right hand And that
(14:45):
has significance because of what else I need to tell
you about Naco. In addition to his prison ministry that
has mentored over two thousand men, he is a prolific writer,
the author of fifteen books, including several about none than Joseph.
Speaker 6 (15:06):
I want to ask you, since you did some of
the teaching when you learned the story about Joseph interpreting
the dreams of the seven year Famine and peace, what
you were thinking.
Speaker 3 (15:17):
Oh, Man, it's amazing.
Speaker 2 (15:21):
When I finally read the book, because he gave it
to me one time to read it, and.
Speaker 3 (15:25):
I was like, Ah, it's all right. But then, God,
everything happens in the season. It wasn't my season to
understand it.
Speaker 2 (15:34):
But then when I picked it up and then I
started reading it more carefully, Man opened my eyes to understand.
Because he calls us the Joseph generation he talked about.
He got a book called the Joseph Generation. For what
you were talking about in that.
Speaker 3 (15:48):
Book talks about having a dream. We all have dreams.
The only way it can be fulfilled is you have
to go through trial and error.
Speaker 2 (15:58):
So when we began to learn about Joseph man, God
told Joseph about a dream. But before Joseph could really
understand his dream, he had to be stripped. The first
thing he was stripped ofver, was his coat that represents pride.
The second thing he was stripped of was his shirt.
Speaker 3 (16:14):
So that story.
Speaker 2 (16:15):
Allowed me to understand that, man, I'm part of a
Joseph generation. Understanding my situation is just like Joseph, God
is just stripping things away from me that I may
go from prison to a palace.
Speaker 3 (16:26):
So therefore I was ready when.
Speaker 2 (16:27):
I came to the free world because I was already
free on the inside.
Speaker 5 (16:36):
And like Joseph before him, Nako would seem to slip
the bonds of his chains and rise to power within
his prison system.
Speaker 2 (16:45):
Here's the thing that got me because people would look
at Nako and be like, man, what you got keys
to the prison, And he actually did have keys to
the prison.
Speaker 3 (16:53):
Spiritually, he had the prison so preyed up that he
could walk through the doors. Officers would open up the
door for him, and.
Speaker 2 (17:01):
We'll be like, God, how you do that, But not
understanding that's how powerful this man was. They would set
and they go in the worsest places, even when it
was a race ride in prison.
Speaker 3 (17:13):
If the violence was bad inside of a prison, by the.
Speaker 2 (17:16):
Time Naco got done with it, it wasn't through his prayer,
through his presence.
Speaker 3 (17:21):
I on one hundred percent sure. I'm no, I'm one
hundred and ten percent sure that God places and Naco where.
Speaker 2 (17:26):
He wanted the place him at to bring the peace,
you know what I'm saying between whatever situation.
Speaker 5 (17:30):
Is going on, and I was wondering if God was
placing Naco in position to solve a murder, a man
who wore a scarlet letter for bank robbery, but who
clearly had something more going on.
Speaker 6 (17:49):
When did you realize that he was somebody different in
somebody that you wanted to learn from?
Speaker 2 (17:56):
That took him minute, because before I actually met him,
I was watching him him and I was like, man,
what is this brother doing?
Speaker 3 (18:03):
But it finally done on me when I finally seen.
Speaker 2 (18:05):
Something happen one day when I finally seen somebody going
off on him and how he held this composure. Somebody
was pretty much cussing him out.
Speaker 3 (18:14):
I'm talking about.
Speaker 2 (18:14):
Letting him have it, and you know, it was pretty
rough on him because I'm deed a sweat start running
down his head.
Speaker 3 (18:24):
And I'm looking at.
Speaker 2 (18:25):
Him and I'm really trying to see how he gonna
react to the situation.
Speaker 3 (18:29):
We in prison. You know, you don't let nobody talk
to you. Get any guy in the way. I don't
care you.
Speaker 2 (18:33):
You're a man of God or whatever. Somebody gonna get
some reaction. Now you're one way enough O not nake O. Man.
He hunted the situation real nice, smoothly an gilly and I.
Speaker 3 (18:45):
Said, okay, you're serious if you.
Speaker 2 (18:47):
Can stand firm on what this guy is giving you
and you still talking about God, because I'd have been like, look, God,
hold up, hold up for me any God, let me
go and handle this business and then I get back
with you.
Speaker 3 (18:59):
Be heave. He stood his host, you know, and hey,
I respect him for that. I was watching him. You
know what I'm saying from a distance.
Speaker 5 (19:07):
Naico's ability to stand his ground and turn the other
cheek and the most difficult of circumstances found footing, of course,
in another biblical figure, and like the King of Kings,
Naco would need to prepare his followers for life without him.
Speaker 2 (19:22):
I remember Naco getting ready to leave because it was
like twelve of us that would sit at the table.
Speaker 3 (19:27):
You know what I'm saying.
Speaker 2 (19:27):
It's almost like Jesus in the twelve the Citele. He
was getting ready to go, and we had our final meet.
Everybody gonna say they goodbyes. Ooh, if you'd have been
a fly on the wall. Every man in that we
crying and sobbing like our.
Speaker 3 (19:40):
Daddy getting ready to leave us. He just told us
that he got to go. Man, we was crying like babies,
that's how much we loved it. And it shot me
because he said I was gonna take over.
Speaker 2 (19:53):
I was saying, oh, no, I'm about to take over.
He's like, yep, you're gonna be the one to take over,
and I leave. So now I'm the spiritual leader in
his space. Why he goes, Mary, you're talking about trying
to walk in.
Speaker 5 (20:06):
Some shoes, and of course it's always hard to walk
in another man's shoes, especially when these men I was
talking to at such different life experiences than me. So
as I sought to learn more about Naco Brown, I
needed to find a pair of shoes that knew his world,
(20:28):
but which trod a civilian path.
Speaker 8 (20:31):
My name is Sarah Wells. I'm the executive director at
Friends in Need Health Center in Kingsport, Tennessee. I've been
as a minister with me.
Speaker 5 (20:41):
Sarah Wells, as a Methodist minister who first came in
contact with Nako's family fifteen years ago after one of
his many prison transfers. And one of the things I
haven't yet told you about Naco is that despite his circumstances,
he has remained married to his wife of twenty six years, Vanessa,
and together they have successfully raised their two children through
(21:04):
his incarceration.
Speaker 8 (21:06):
The mother and the children came to us through Interfaith
Hospitality Network, and they asked me again if I could
help her to get a job. Just happened to have
one open in our breakfast and lunch feeding program, and
so I hired her to run that, which was a
perfect fit.
Speaker 5 (21:25):
Through their work together, Wells and Vanessa Brown slowly came
to gain each other's trust and respect.
Speaker 8 (21:31):
Vanessa was extremely quiet. She didn't want to talk very withdrawn,
so immediately I had a feeling more than likely, you know,
her husband was indeed incarcerated at that time. She didn't
say those words. What she told me was that he
was not there. She was still married and very much
in love with her husband, and that her family was
(21:53):
simply doing everything that it could in order to continue
on until he could be back with him again. Her
children room were just absolutely out of this world. Everything
was yes, ma'am, yes, sir. They were dressed to at
She wanted them to look their best, feel their best,
and be their best. I finally gained her trust and
(22:13):
she began to open up, and I asked her where
is your husband? And she finally told me that he
was incarcerated, And as I began letting her know that
that didn't matter to me. But what could I do
to help her? She explained to me, each time he
was moved, she moved where he was so the children
in particular could continue on to be taught by their father.
Speaker 6 (22:36):
It sounds like she really became a friend to you.
Speaker 3 (22:38):
Yes she did.
Speaker 8 (22:39):
I did feel like, you know, God had given me
a family member, my sister, to walk with and she
began to share with me about the case and where
she was fighting. I remember speaking with her pastor and
he said that he had never seen anybody be so
faithful in such hard time. Somebody would give her ten dollars,
(23:02):
she would make sure to give not one, but two,
one to times in one for her faith offering.
Speaker 5 (23:14):
As well as became closer to Vanessa and her children.
Like me, she found herself trying to figure out Nico Brown.
Speaker 8 (23:22):
After the relationship grew, she told me that her husband
did want to talk with me if I would agree
to that, and I said, most certainly. And what he
gave glory to first of all, was to God for
being able to minister to the men that were in
the prison, the workers, many of them, you know, truly
(23:42):
respected him, because I know the ones that were here
in our area did indeed respect him for his faith,
and they did trust and believe in him. One of
the things we were talking about at that time was
that when released, I planned for him to come and
work in our ministry.
Speaker 6 (24:00):
Something that I really wanted to ask you about because
you work in prison ministry, and I think you had
mentioned to me something that I felt too. At the
first time. When I talk with Nako is a sense
of skepticism when you go into these types of conversations
and relationships around whether this person is the real deal,
(24:23):
whether they're just telling you something to get an advantage
or help their personal situation. I wonder if you can
talk me through that journey that you had in your
conversations with Niko.
Speaker 8 (24:36):
In the beginning, I was you're always skeptical about you know,
how truthful they being. Is he just trying to get
out well, you know, he never said I didn't do
He didn't try to defend himself in any way. He
simply tried to state facts. And as I began to
hear him answer, and I read the books that he
(24:57):
had already written, I began to feel that he was
the real deal. I felt like I could trust and
listen to what he was saying. And yes, he did
finally win me over to the fact that I would
trust him to be in our ministry.
Speaker 5 (25:17):
Given their interactions, it was inevitable, of course, that the
circumstances of Nako's case and Jonathan Luna's murder would come
to the foreground.
Speaker 8 (25:27):
The main thing that he stressed was the violation of
the contamination of the trial, the fact that he could
not get information from the FBI where they did the investigation,
and then they would not release the evidence thereof. And
then of course we spoke more about what happened when
the money went missing than that it should have been
(25:50):
thrown out or at least a new trial. But I
knew for a fact that they wouldn't release to him
what the outcome of the investigation as to where the
money went. The fact that when it was in court
to begin with, he said that the attorney that Jess
was arrested in twenty twenty stated that everything was in
evidence and all the paperworked with signed. And then, of course,
(26:12):
as we know, the other gentleman, mister Luna, was murdered.
It just felt like it was all corrupted.
Speaker 6 (26:19):
The attorney that you referenced that was Nako's attorney was
also the attorney on the last case that Jonathan Muner
was trying when he was murdered.
Speaker 8 (26:29):
And now that he's been arrested, was showing that he
supposedly has been accused of having a relationship with the kingpin.
That all makes sense.
Speaker 6 (26:43):
There was a jobsy in quality to his journey after
his conviction just defeat after defeat after defeat.
Speaker 8 (26:53):
Naco had worked hard to get them to hear that
in the court system, and they kept denying it. He
felt if they would investigate that more that that would
help in the case to find out who murdered mister Luna.
Speaker 6 (27:06):
Did you talk to him about that?
Speaker 8 (27:08):
Yes, he was like this brick wall and I don't
care what he was. He wasn't going to give up.
I've never seen two people be so tenacious in my life.
He knew somebody was going to listen.
Speaker 6 (27:22):
I think what's fascinating to me is, even though it
was defeat after defeat and it's been twenty years, his
faith in life, his faith in God, is faith in
all of these things doesn't seem to have wavered.
Speaker 8 (27:39):
Even though they were denied, it didn't stop them. They
felt like they was sooner or later someone going to
hear their voice and be the voice for them. That's
what both of their lives were wrapped around. There will
be justice for Nico Brown.
Speaker 5 (28:02):
Somebody somewhere will return. Right after this break. As spring
turned to summer in twenty twenty, and as the first
major COVID surge started cutting its brutal path through our
nation's prisons. I started to wonder whether Nicico Brown would
(28:26):
even survive to find the justice he sought. But my
doubting Thomas met its match in Nako's Faithful Disciples, Doyle
Lee and Antonio eSPI.
Speaker 7 (28:37):
Here is a tail tale referencing you can go and
look this up yourself. Do you know there's an outbreak
of the coronavirus in the prisons that nobody's talking about.
Speaker 4 (28:48):
Family members are not able to communicate.
Speaker 7 (28:50):
Of course, it is a security risk for even them
to tell their family members that they are at hospitals.
Speaker 4 (28:57):
You know that, right?
Speaker 2 (28:59):
Oh?
Speaker 6 (28:59):
I did not know that that's what's going on.
Speaker 7 (29:02):
And the way the prison is designed, say, if somebody
gets sick, you go to a sick call and they'll
send you back to a unit where it's impossible to
socially distance yourself.
Speaker 4 (29:12):
Okay, yep. Now, sadly have to say this.
Speaker 7 (29:15):
That my father passed away from the virus the day
before my birthday, April to twenty six.
Speaker 4 (29:21):
He was an ICU for two weeks.
Speaker 7 (29:24):
My mother was an ICU as well, on the tenth
Florida University of Kentucky Medical Facility. When my mother got
out three weeks ago. I went to get her out
of out of there. It was twenty five men in
the prison with the COVID virus, sixty on the way,
another one hundred more coming in out here at the
Federal Medical Center in Lexington. But I say all that
(29:46):
to say this, I'm going to tell you about the
glory of.
Speaker 4 (29:49):
God on this man's life.
Speaker 7 (29:50):
Right There are no coronavirus at the facility that he's
at right now. Wow, no one he's been over that place.
I could tell you again, man, I've seen signs and wonders.
Because you know, I'm gonna tell you I was a
hard headed when I was probably a hard case. I
was wondering where God was. I believe it, but I
(30:13):
was wondering where it was. And I've seen rainbows happen.
I've seen different stuff happen. I've seen God used Brother
Brown to do some amazing stuff.
Speaker 4 (30:21):
Man, like you cannot deny.
Speaker 7 (30:24):
That the power of God moves through him.
Speaker 3 (30:29):
Now, what you need to ask, Nako, how many don't call.
Speaker 2 (30:31):
The coronavirused where he at. I guarante tee you it's
less than anywhere else. I guarantee you that.
Speaker 3 (30:40):
And I ain't even talk to him, and I bet
you because I know him.
Speaker 2 (30:43):
He's praying and he got the whole compound covered, yo,
So I'm I'm guarantee that God got They go down
there for a reason, praying and keeping everyone covered.
Speaker 3 (30:53):
And the COVID.
Speaker 2 (30:54):
Nineteen has not affected the prisons like it may have
affected other ones.
Speaker 5 (31:01):
And the thing is as hard as it is to
believe they were right. When I spoke with Lee and
eSPI in late May, there were no reported cases of
COVID at NACo's prison in Victorville, California, and Naco knew
where to give credit.
Speaker 6 (31:17):
Okay, you there, nego, I'm here, yes, excellent, excellent, all right, Hey,
how's it going. How are you doing? I'm doing good,
Michael SAIDO.
Speaker 2 (31:27):
There's no breakout here, just taking one day at the town.
Speaker 1 (31:30):
You know, definitely get the clay.
Speaker 5 (31:35):
But NATO's praying and faith couldn't help stave off the
grim reaper everywhere. Four weeks after Doyle Lee lost his father,
Naco would lose his as well. And in all this death,
hope and redemption, as we turn our attention back to
the courtroom, when the money got stolen, I was wondering
(31:56):
whether we might receive our own divine intervention to help,
but solve this case next time on Somebody Somewhere.
Speaker 2 (32:15):
It would take an awful lot to persuade me that
Jonathan was involved in the disappearance of that money.
Speaker 1 (32:21):
I told him so, I'll put it in the trolle Prepper.
Speaker 2 (32:23):
When I locked the door and he had the key
so you could get in, I locked the door on
right off.
Speaker 3 (32:28):
This sticks in my mind. He wouldn't take a lot.
Speaker 4 (32:30):
He takes your test.
Speaker 3 (32:32):
He was the one who grabbed the money. I mean,
I just was slowed down in my mind about that.
Speaker 6 (32:38):
I'm sure the consensus was that people believed that the
money went missing because of Jonathan, but it always.
Speaker 3 (32:45):
Did bug me that it was the FBI office in
Baltimore conducting this investigation.
Speaker 9 (32:52):
Here it goes the devil telling me it's a lie.
I didn't he says, I'm around me sales. It's all
right to Britain that you can get more done you give.
Speaker 5 (33:11):
Somebody Somewhere is a production of Rainstream Media Incorporated. Sound design, editing,
and mixing has been provided by Resonate Recordings. Original score
and voiceover work provided by Hallie Payne. Artwork provided by
Evan McGlenn and Kendall Payne. If you have any information
regarding the Jonathan Luna case, please contact us via our
(33:32):
website sbswpodcast dot com. And finally, if you enjoyed this podcast,
please rate and review us on Apple Podcasts. It really
helps and we really appreciate it.
Speaker 4 (33:47):
Thank you for listening.
Speaker 9 (33:50):
Here.
Speaker 2 (33:51):
God a hey to say, I'm sid good. Just people love.
Speaker 4 (34:03):
Eve, don't still love but need more money
Somebody Somewhere is a production of Rainstream Media Incorporated. This
podcast investigates the unsolved death of federal prosecutor Jonathan Luna
in two thousand and three. It is a true story,
but the opinions of the hosts and interviewees are simply
that opinions, not facts, and the credibility of the witnesses
and what they say is to be determined by the listener.
(00:27):
Everyone is presumed innocent until proven otherwise in a court
of law. Previously on Somebody Somewhere.
Speaker 2 (00:40):
Ravenel's accused of helping his client, a drug dealer, and
others in a criminal conspiracy.
Speaker 3 (00:46):
He he literally bought another bree case. This is a
major league drug trafficking case. This wasn't small local, This
was nationwide.
Speaker 4 (00:56):
May I own a non own joke about that, because
I think you know that was there.
Speaker 2 (01:00):
The initial inclination of the US Attorney's office was somebody
from this case.
Speaker 4 (01:04):
Had something to do with Jonathan not showing up.
Speaker 3 (01:07):
Well, come on, no one with a fucking pen nice?
Come on, Ain't nobody buying that bullshit?
Speaker 5 (01:14):
This is episode seventh of season three Naco of Nazareth.
I'm your host, David Payne. It's been ten years since
the federal prosecutor was found deadnand Boro and Lecaester County.
Speaker 6 (01:35):
We will find out who did this.
Speaker 2 (01:37):
Was he trying to stage some sort of attack and
went too far.
Speaker 5 (01:54):
It's been five months since I started my research into
Jonathan Luna's death, and I was hopelessly stuck in a
honeypot of conflicting theories. I had tracked down the actors
in the so called missing money case, and the explosive
claims by Naco that maybe his lawyer had taken the
money and that maybe Jonathan got caught up in it
(02:14):
and maybe that led to his death were waking me
up in the middle of the night. Although the court
system was not going to give them their due, and
while I would typically discount them as well, I needed
to know more about Naco to judge his and their credibility,
and so I'm going to need to ask you for
some rope here as we take a slight detour this episode,
(02:37):
see if you can strip away your preconceptions of the
bank robber label as you assess the full measure of
this man. For unlike Ken Ravenel, Naco Brown is not
searching for character references from the brothers around him. He
seeks his from a father above.
Speaker 4 (02:58):
My name is Doyle Lee. I'm from Lexington, Kentucky.
Speaker 7 (03:03):
I just turned forty nine years old on April of
twenty seventh. My grandfather was a prominent pastor here.
Speaker 5 (03:11):
Doyle Lee is a second generation p K, a pastor's kid,
and one of several people I talked to about Naco.
Speaker 7 (03:19):
Well, I can tell you that I would have to
consider him more than a friend.
Speaker 4 (03:24):
I actually referenced him as my spiritual father.
Speaker 6 (03:27):
Tell me about the first time you met him and
how that came about.
Speaker 7 (03:32):
I don't know if you know the dynamics of entering
into a new prison facility, but I had transferred to
and I wanted to attach myself to the church, and
so in prison, of course, you know, it's different type
of sex. I mean, you got your gags, and you
got your homies, and you got your racisms and different
things going on. But I wanted to be a part
(03:54):
of the church. So I was told that, you know,
we got a guy on the compound.
Speaker 6 (03:59):
You know you need to When I first talked to
you yesterday the day before, and I brought up Niko's name,
you had a very visceral reaction.
Speaker 7 (04:08):
I'm almost incapable of putting it into words. How God
has been able to use one person to be able
to change atmosphere, change culture. This is the things that
really had impressed me. Again, I grew up around the
church of my whole life, but he actually, through God's help,
gave me something that I could give to somebody else
(04:30):
that could help them apply to their current situation, to
themselves and see change beginning to come in.
Speaker 5 (04:37):
Like I mentioned, Lee's reverence for his friend and spiritual mentor,
was born of hard scrabble circumstances and a shared set
of bad choices.
Speaker 7 (04:52):
I grew up with a basketball background slash religious background.
I went on to play college basketball out in Mexico
at the New Mexico Military Institute. Didn't like it there
as a result, quit school, came home, ended up having
a child, and at that point began to dab into
(05:16):
the criminal lifestyle drug dealing. Went to prison in nineteen
ninety eight for ten years, came out trying to do
the right thing, and then recidivated in two thousand and ten,
and at that point, after sentencing, I was sent to
prison in wels West Virginia and this.
Speaker 4 (05:37):
Is where I met Naco Brown. And you know, one of.
Speaker 5 (05:41):
The things about and that meeting would be transformational for Lee.
Speaker 7 (05:45):
And what Nico was able to introduce me to when
it came to change is change had to be centered
around a set of principles that come from the Kingdom
of God, and that when we acknowledged those principles and
begin to apply those principles, then you can get the
fruit and the results of changing.
Speaker 6 (06:02):
So you grew up in a church, so you had
that church background, but for whatever reason, it didn't stick
with you as a young man. What was it about
what he did that kind of turned the switch?
Speaker 4 (06:16):
What he was able to do was connect the dots.
Speaker 7 (06:19):
I knew that there was something missing, not that I
didn't believe, but there was something missing, and he was
able to help me address what was going on internally.
As a matter of fact, I thank God for Naco,
and had I not met him, I would probably still
be chasing my tails like a doll.
Speaker 5 (06:42):
And if it were just Lee that Naco had talked
into going down a different path, that would be something,
although perhaps not all that spectacular. But as I would learn,
Nico created a spiritual development program that he rolled out
in every facility he served time in offer.
Speaker 7 (07:00):
And talked about how he meant to me but to
see the impact that he's had on men that were unchurched,
and how he was able to help us become free
because no one had ever told us.
Speaker 4 (07:14):
And I remember him saying this un quoting him here,
that you could.
Speaker 7 (07:18):
Be free on the outside of prison, but still be
locked up on the inside. And so God gave him
a curriculum, and he absolutely showed me how to become
free on the inside, and we begin to spiritually develop
these men, and the administration came to him, and the
(07:38):
administrative staff beginning to see results in the men that
he was teaching and mentoring. As a matter of fact,
to the point where the Bureau of Prisons adopted the
curriculum and made it a part of their transitional courses.
And almost over about two thousand menes graduated from this.
(08:00):
I mean, you're talking about changing a whole compound.
Speaker 5 (08:08):
According to Lee, Nicico's spiritual development program wasn't just aimed
at people ready to hear the good book, nor was
it merely empty words.
Speaker 7 (08:17):
And if you could just see how impactful that Niko was,
I seen countless lives change. I seen, you know, men
who had not been in contact with family members things
begin to be re established. I've seen supernatural healing take
place for the men there, and I've seen so many
(08:40):
miraculous things.
Speaker 4 (08:42):
Happening in the court system. The list goes on and on.
Speaker 5 (08:46):
And it wasn't just the inmates who felt the influence
of Nico Brown.
Speaker 7 (08:50):
When we was at the facility in West Virginia, just
so happened. We were waiting on a warden to come there,
and when the warden did arrive there and she's seen Nako,
she stopped what she was doing and told the chaplaincy
to get with him. Get with this guy right here.
Whatever he has to say, follow what he says. And
(09:12):
so I've seen over and over again during times of
gang violence, when the tension was high, that the administration
would come to have him to.
Speaker 4 (09:20):
Talk to, maybe the heads of gangs.
Speaker 7 (09:23):
The auditoriums when Naco would speak would be wall to walk.
I'm talking about from every culture, white, Hispanic, the gang members,
the Arians, the Muslims, and and radical every facet of
group would come. I'm talking about former real life mob
figures would sit down and talk with this man, and
(09:46):
he would be able to enlighten.
Speaker 5 (09:51):
Now I can almost hear some of you rolling your eyes,
thinking that Doyle Lee's testimony about Naco is a little
over the top and it's frank natural to employ a
skeptics ear to his story. But remember this, the people
in the federal prison system are likely far more skeptical
than you will ever be. Something another one of Nako's
(10:12):
fellow inmates, Antonio eSPI, reminded me of in a way
that only esbe.
Speaker 2 (10:17):
Could because hey, man, everybody had their eye on him
to see, hey, this is really a man of God.
Speaker 3 (10:24):
You know what I'm trying to see? In in hiccups
were looking for it. We imprison them. I shoot, I
will crook, you'll crook, He'll crook. Everybody to crook.
Speaker 2 (10:32):
Your prisons were trying to see, Okay, what's your angle here, brother,
what's really going on? But he had none, He had
no angle whatsoever.
Speaker 3 (10:40):
You know, it was all about God.
Speaker 5 (10:46):
Like Doyle Lee, Espie's path to prison was a predictable
one given his circumstances and choices, but his path out
following his interactions with Naco Brown was anything.
Speaker 2 (10:57):
But See, no one actually knows what's the point of
a man's life other than a man.
Speaker 3 (11:02):
Can't nobody tell this story better than him?
Speaker 2 (11:05):
And you know it. Even though I tell you know
how my life was when I met, they go the
story behind that though. Now me coming from the streets
selling drugs, robbery, doing pretty much anything and everything on
the street. Now the whole time, understanding that while I'm
going through this, man, I'm sending my family through hell
(11:26):
and high water because I'm married, I have children, So
I'm selling drugs and then I'm out there robbing people.
Speaker 3 (11:34):
Then I still have to come home.
Speaker 2 (11:36):
Now I'm gonna bring all that that I done did
in them streets.
Speaker 4 (11:39):
To my house.
Speaker 3 (11:40):
So my family is in danger. Little did they know
when we go all the groceries, I got a gun
on me because I did so much dirt in the street.
Speaker 2 (11:48):
Man ain't gonna tell them when somebody gonna want they
revenge while I'm with my family.
Speaker 3 (11:53):
So when I say, by the time, God said.
Speaker 2 (11:56):
You know what, I'm gonna send you to prison, and
I got somebody that gonna give you some Really, He's
gonna father you and gonna train you in the area
that you need to be trained in.
Speaker 3 (12:04):
Man, that was right on time. Now I'm a minister.
I'm a minister and I preach at a church. Did
I see it back then? Did Joseph see it back then?
Speaker 4 (12:13):
No?
Speaker 3 (12:14):
I had to go through the storm. I had to
go through the fire.
Speaker 2 (12:16):
And what God did in the fire was hey burn
everything off of me that needed to be burned off
of me. So therefore, when I came out, I was
shying from the prison to the palist.
Speaker 5 (12:31):
Antonio Espi's transformation from a doubting Thomas drug dealer to
a praise the Lord preacher didn't happen overnight, But looking
back on it now, he believes that meeting Nako was
all preordained.
Speaker 3 (12:45):
Yeah, it's crazy.
Speaker 2 (12:46):
You know, when I met him, it was a time
in my life where, you know, I was really trying
to transition on, trying to get my life better, right,
and something happened before I actually got to prison. I
was looking at a term of thirty to life, you
know what I'm saying. That's before I went to trial
or anything. And I'm inside of a bar. A guy
(13:09):
came up to me when I was shooting pools, and
the guy stopped in front of me. He hold up
seven fingers and he told me. He said, God told
me to tell you seven years.
Speaker 3 (13:19):
And I was like, what he told me? He repeated it,
God told me to tell you seven years.
Speaker 2 (13:24):
And so I just bust out crying and started hunting
a guy. Now, mind you, now I'm looking at.
Speaker 3 (13:29):
Thirty to life.
Speaker 2 (13:30):
So I end up going to trial. Being hard headed,
I took it all the way to trial and I
ended up getting seventeen and.
Speaker 4 (13:36):
A half years.
Speaker 2 (13:37):
So fast forward. I got locked up in two thousand
and two.
Speaker 3 (13:42):
When I meet Nako, it's two thousand and nine. That's
seven years. And I told him the story.
Speaker 2 (13:49):
And he was like, hey, well, it's not by chance
that we meet. And I'm telling him this is my
seventh year, and I'm telling him, well, I'm getting.
Speaker 3 (13:55):
Ready to get out of jail. I'm going to get
out of prison. He was saying, hey, that ain't what
God has with me.
Speaker 2 (14:01):
I realized on down the road the reason I met Niko,
it wasn't that I was gonna get out physically, but
I was gonna get free spiritually. And Nako just happened
to be the individual of that God allowed me to
meet at my seventh year.
Speaker 5 (14:24):
And for those of you who know your Bible. You
know that seven years has historical significance in the story
of Joseph and the Technicolor dream Coade. Joseph was the
youngest and favorite son of a wealthy Jewish farmer who
was sold into slavery by his brothers and later rose
to power as the Egyptian king's right hand And that
(14:45):
has significance because of what else I need to tell
you about Naco. In addition to his prison ministry that
has mentored over two thousand men, he is a prolific writer,
the author of fifteen books, including several about none than Joseph.
Speaker 6 (15:06):
I want to ask you, since you did some of
the teaching when you learned the story about Joseph interpreting
the dreams of the seven year Famine and peace, what
you were thinking.
Speaker 3 (15:17):
Oh, Man, it's amazing.
Speaker 2 (15:21):
When I finally read the book, because he gave it
to me one time to read it, and.
Speaker 3 (15:25):
I was like, Ah, it's all right. But then, God,
everything happens in the season. It wasn't my season to
understand it.
Speaker 2 (15:34):
But then when I picked it up and then I
started reading it more carefully, Man opened my eyes to understand.
Because he calls us the Joseph generation he talked about.
He got a book called the Joseph Generation. For what
you were talking about in that.
Speaker 3 (15:48):
Book talks about having a dream. We all have dreams.
The only way it can be fulfilled is you have
to go through trial and error.
Speaker 2 (15:58):
So when we began to learn about Joseph man, God
told Joseph about a dream. But before Joseph could really
understand his dream, he had to be stripped. The first
thing he was stripped ofver, was his coat that represents pride.
The second thing he was stripped of was his shirt.
Speaker 3 (16:14):
So that story.
Speaker 2 (16:15):
Allowed me to understand that, man, I'm part of a
Joseph generation. Understanding my situation is just like Joseph, God
is just stripping things away from me that I may
go from prison to a palace.
Speaker 3 (16:26):
So therefore I was ready when.
Speaker 2 (16:27):
I came to the free world because I was already
free on the inside.
Speaker 5 (16:36):
And like Joseph before him, Nako would seem to slip
the bonds of his chains and rise to power within
his prison system.
Speaker 2 (16:45):
Here's the thing that got me because people would look
at Nako and be like, man, what you got keys
to the prison, And he actually did have keys to
the prison.
Speaker 3 (16:53):
Spiritually, he had the prison so preyed up that he
could walk through the doors. Officers would open up the
door for him, and.
Speaker 2 (17:01):
We'll be like, God, how you do that, But not
understanding that's how powerful this man was. They would set
and they go in the worsest places, even when it
was a race ride in prison.
Speaker 3 (17:13):
If the violence was bad inside of a prison, by the.
Speaker 2 (17:16):
Time Naco got done with it, it wasn't through his prayer,
through his presence.
Speaker 3 (17:21):
I on one hundred percent sure. I'm no, I'm one
hundred and ten percent sure that God places and Naco where.
Speaker 2 (17:26):
He wanted the place him at to bring the peace,
you know what I'm saying between whatever situation.
Speaker 5 (17:30):
Is going on, and I was wondering if God was
placing Naco in position to solve a murder, a man
who wore a scarlet letter for bank robbery, but who
clearly had something more going on.
Speaker 6 (17:49):
When did you realize that he was somebody different in
somebody that you wanted to learn from?
Speaker 2 (17:56):
That took him minute, because before I actually met him,
I was watching him him and I was like, man,
what is this brother doing?
Speaker 3 (18:03):
But it finally done on me when I finally seen.
Speaker 2 (18:05):
Something happen one day when I finally seen somebody going
off on him and how he held this composure. Somebody
was pretty much cussing him out.
Speaker 3 (18:14):
I'm talking about.
Speaker 2 (18:14):
Letting him have it, and you know, it was pretty
rough on him because I'm deed a sweat start running
down his head.
Speaker 3 (18:24):
And I'm looking at.
Speaker 2 (18:25):
Him and I'm really trying to see how he gonna
react to the situation.
Speaker 3 (18:29):
We in prison. You know, you don't let nobody talk
to you. Get any guy in the way. I don't
care you.
Speaker 2 (18:33):
You're a man of God or whatever. Somebody gonna get
some reaction. Now you're one way enough O not nake O. Man.
He hunted the situation real nice, smoothly an gilly and I.
Speaker 3 (18:45):
Said, okay, you're serious if you.
Speaker 2 (18:47):
Can stand firm on what this guy is giving you
and you still talking about God, because I'd have been like, look, God,
hold up, hold up for me any God, let me
go and handle this business and then I get back
with you.
Speaker 3 (18:59):
Be heave. He stood his host, you know, and hey,
I respect him for that. I was watching him. You
know what I'm saying from a distance.
Speaker 5 (19:07):
Naico's ability to stand his ground and turn the other
cheek and the most difficult of circumstances found footing, of course,
in another biblical figure, and like the King of Kings,
Naco would need to prepare his followers for life without him.
Speaker 2 (19:22):
I remember Naco getting ready to leave because it was
like twelve of us that would sit at the table.
Speaker 3 (19:27):
You know what I'm saying.
Speaker 2 (19:27):
It's almost like Jesus in the twelve the Citele. He
was getting ready to go, and we had our final meet.
Everybody gonna say they goodbyes. Ooh, if you'd have been
a fly on the wall. Every man in that we
crying and sobbing like our.
Speaker 3 (19:40):
Daddy getting ready to leave us. He just told us
that he got to go. Man, we was crying like babies,
that's how much we loved it. And it shot me
because he said I was gonna take over.
Speaker 2 (19:53):
I was saying, oh, no, I'm about to take over.
He's like, yep, you're gonna be the one to take over,
and I leave. So now I'm the spiritual leader in
his space. Why he goes, Mary, you're talking about trying
to walk in.
Speaker 5 (20:06):
Some shoes, and of course it's always hard to walk
in another man's shoes, especially when these men I was
talking to at such different life experiences than me. So
as I sought to learn more about Naco Brown, I
needed to find a pair of shoes that knew his world,
(20:28):
but which trod a civilian path.
Speaker 8 (20:31):
My name is Sarah Wells. I'm the executive director at
Friends in Need Health Center in Kingsport, Tennessee. I've been
as a minister with me.
Speaker 5 (20:41):
Sarah Wells, as a Methodist minister who first came in
contact with Nako's family fifteen years ago after one of
his many prison transfers. And one of the things I
haven't yet told you about Naco is that despite his circumstances,
he has remained married to his wife of twenty six years, Vanessa,
and together they have successfully raised their two children through
(21:04):
his incarceration.
Speaker 8 (21:06):
The mother and the children came to us through Interfaith
Hospitality Network, and they asked me again if I could
help her to get a job. Just happened to have
one open in our breakfast and lunch feeding program, and
so I hired her to run that, which was a
perfect fit.
Speaker 5 (21:25):
Through their work together, Wells and Vanessa Brown slowly came
to gain each other's trust and respect.
Speaker 8 (21:31):
Vanessa was extremely quiet. She didn't want to talk very withdrawn,
so immediately I had a feeling more than likely, you know,
her husband was indeed incarcerated at that time. She didn't
say those words. What she told me was that he
was not there. She was still married and very much
in love with her husband, and that her family was
(21:53):
simply doing everything that it could in order to continue
on until he could be back with him again. Her
children room were just absolutely out of this world. Everything
was yes, ma'am, yes, sir. They were dressed to at
She wanted them to look their best, feel their best,
and be their best. I finally gained her trust and
(22:13):
she began to open up, and I asked her where
is your husband? And she finally told me that he
was incarcerated, And as I began letting her know that
that didn't matter to me. But what could I do
to help her? She explained to me, each time he
was moved, she moved where he was so the children
in particular could continue on to be taught by their father.
Speaker 6 (22:36):
It sounds like she really became a friend to you.
Speaker 3 (22:38):
Yes she did.
Speaker 8 (22:39):
I did feel like, you know, God had given me
a family member, my sister, to walk with and she
began to share with me about the case and where
she was fighting. I remember speaking with her pastor and
he said that he had never seen anybody be so
faithful in such hard time. Somebody would give her ten dollars,
(23:02):
she would make sure to give not one, but two,
one to times in one for her faith offering.
Speaker 5 (23:14):
As well as became closer to Vanessa and her children.
Like me, she found herself trying to figure out Nico Brown.
Speaker 8 (23:22):
After the relationship grew, she told me that her husband
did want to talk with me if I would agree
to that, and I said, most certainly. And what he
gave glory to first of all, was to God for
being able to minister to the men that were in
the prison, the workers, many of them, you know, truly
(23:42):
respected him, because I know the ones that were here
in our area did indeed respect him for his faith,
and they did trust and believe in him. One of
the things we were talking about at that time was
that when released, I planned for him to come and
work in our ministry.
Speaker 6 (24:00):
Something that I really wanted to ask you about because
you work in prison ministry, and I think you had
mentioned to me something that I felt too. At the
first time. When I talk with Nako is a sense
of skepticism when you go into these types of conversations
and relationships around whether this person is the real deal,
(24:23):
whether they're just telling you something to get an advantage
or help their personal situation. I wonder if you can
talk me through that journey that you had in your
conversations with Niko.
Speaker 8 (24:36):
In the beginning, I was you're always skeptical about you know,
how truthful they being. Is he just trying to get
out well, you know, he never said I didn't do
He didn't try to defend himself in any way. He
simply tried to state facts. And as I began to
hear him answer, and I read the books that he
(24:57):
had already written, I began to feel that he was
the real deal. I felt like I could trust and
listen to what he was saying. And yes, he did
finally win me over to the fact that I would
trust him to be in our ministry.
Speaker 5 (25:17):
Given their interactions, it was inevitable, of course, that the
circumstances of Nako's case and Jonathan Luna's murder would come
to the foreground.
Speaker 8 (25:27):
The main thing that he stressed was the violation of
the contamination of the trial, the fact that he could
not get information from the FBI where they did the investigation,
and then they would not release the evidence thereof. And
then of course we spoke more about what happened when
the money went missing than that it should have been
(25:50):
thrown out or at least a new trial. But I
knew for a fact that they wouldn't release to him
what the outcome of the investigation as to where the
money went. The fact that when it was in court
to begin with, he said that the attorney that Jess
was arrested in twenty twenty stated that everything was in
evidence and all the paperworked with signed. And then, of course,
(26:12):
as we know, the other gentleman, mister Luna, was murdered.
It just felt like it was all corrupted.
Speaker 6 (26:19):
The attorney that you referenced that was Nako's attorney was
also the attorney on the last case that Jonathan Muner
was trying when he was murdered.
Speaker 8 (26:29):
And now that he's been arrested, was showing that he
supposedly has been accused of having a relationship with the kingpin.
That all makes sense.
Speaker 6 (26:43):
There was a jobsy in quality to his journey after
his conviction just defeat after defeat after defeat.
Speaker 8 (26:53):
Naco had worked hard to get them to hear that
in the court system, and they kept denying it. He
felt if they would investigate that more that that would
help in the case to find out who murdered mister Luna.
Speaker 6 (27:06):
Did you talk to him about that?
Speaker 8 (27:08):
Yes, he was like this brick wall and I don't
care what he was. He wasn't going to give up.
I've never seen two people be so tenacious in my life.
He knew somebody was going to listen.
Speaker 6 (27:22):
I think what's fascinating to me is, even though it
was defeat after defeat and it's been twenty years, his
faith in life, his faith in God, is faith in
all of these things doesn't seem to have wavered.
Speaker 8 (27:39):
Even though they were denied, it didn't stop them. They
felt like they was sooner or later someone going to
hear their voice and be the voice for them. That's
what both of their lives were wrapped around. There will
be justice for Nico Brown.
Speaker 5 (28:02):
Somebody somewhere will return. Right after this break. As spring
turned to summer in twenty twenty, and as the first
major COVID surge started cutting its brutal path through our
nation's prisons. I started to wonder whether Nicico Brown would
(28:26):
even survive to find the justice he sought. But my
doubting Thomas met its match in Nako's Faithful Disciples, Doyle
Lee and Antonio eSPI.
Speaker 7 (28:37):
Here is a tail tale referencing you can go and
look this up yourself. Do you know there's an outbreak
of the coronavirus in the prisons that nobody's talking about.
Speaker 4 (28:48):
Family members are not able to communicate.
Speaker 7 (28:50):
Of course, it is a security risk for even them
to tell their family members that they are at hospitals.
Speaker 4 (28:57):
You know that, right?
Speaker 2 (28:59):
Oh?
Speaker 6 (28:59):
I did not know that that's what's going on.
Speaker 7 (29:02):
And the way the prison is designed, say, if somebody
gets sick, you go to a sick call and they'll
send you back to a unit where it's impossible to
socially distance yourself.
Speaker 4 (29:12):
Okay, yep. Now, sadly have to say this.
Speaker 7 (29:15):
That my father passed away from the virus the day
before my birthday, April to twenty six.
Speaker 4 (29:21):
He was an ICU for two weeks.
Speaker 7 (29:24):
My mother was an ICU as well, on the tenth
Florida University of Kentucky Medical Facility. When my mother got
out three weeks ago. I went to get her out
of out of there. It was twenty five men in
the prison with the COVID virus, sixty on the way,
another one hundred more coming in out here at the
Federal Medical Center in Lexington. But I say all that
(29:46):
to say this, I'm going to tell you about the
glory of.
Speaker 4 (29:49):
God on this man's life.
Speaker 7 (29:50):
Right There are no coronavirus at the facility that he's
at right now. Wow, no one he's been over that place.
I could tell you again, man, I've seen signs and wonders.
Because you know, I'm gonna tell you I was a
hard headed when I was probably a hard case. I
was wondering where God was. I believe it, but I
(30:13):
was wondering where it was. And I've seen rainbows happen.
I've seen different stuff happen. I've seen God used Brother
Brown to do some amazing stuff.
Speaker 4 (30:21):
Man, like you cannot deny.
Speaker 7 (30:24):
That the power of God moves through him.
Speaker 3 (30:29):
Now, what you need to ask, Nako, how many don't call.
Speaker 2 (30:31):
The coronavirused where he at. I guarante tee you it's
less than anywhere else. I guarantee you that.
Speaker 3 (30:40):
And I ain't even talk to him, and I bet
you because I know him.
Speaker 2 (30:43):
He's praying and he got the whole compound covered, yo,
So I'm I'm guarantee that God got They go down
there for a reason, praying and keeping everyone covered.
Speaker 3 (30:53):
And the COVID.
Speaker 2 (30:54):
Nineteen has not affected the prisons like it may have
affected other ones.
Speaker 5 (31:01):
And the thing is as hard as it is to
believe they were right. When I spoke with Lee and
eSPI in late May, there were no reported cases of
COVID at NACo's prison in Victorville, California, and Naco knew
where to give credit.
Speaker 6 (31:17):
Okay, you there, nego, I'm here, yes, excellent, excellent, all right, Hey,
how's it going. How are you doing? I'm doing good,
Michael SAIDO.
Speaker 2 (31:27):
There's no breakout here, just taking one day at the town.
Speaker 1 (31:30):
You know, definitely get the clay.
Speaker 5 (31:35):
But NATO's praying and faith couldn't help stave off the
grim reaper everywhere. Four weeks after Doyle Lee lost his father,
Naco would lose his as well. And in all this death,
hope and redemption, as we turn our attention back to
the courtroom, when the money got stolen, I was wondering
(31:56):
whether we might receive our own divine intervention to help,
but solve this case next time on Somebody Somewhere.
Speaker 2 (32:15):
It would take an awful lot to persuade me that
Jonathan was involved in the disappearance of that money.
Speaker 1 (32:21):
I told him so, I'll put it in the trolle Prepper.
Speaker 2 (32:23):
When I locked the door and he had the key
so you could get in, I locked the door on
right off.
Speaker 3 (32:28):
This sticks in my mind. He wouldn't take a lot.
Speaker 4 (32:30):
He takes your test.
Speaker 3 (32:32):
He was the one who grabbed the money. I mean,
I just was slowed down in my mind about that.
Speaker 6 (32:38):
I'm sure the consensus was that people believed that the
money went missing because of Jonathan, but it always.
Speaker 3 (32:45):
Did bug me that it was the FBI office in
Baltimore conducting this investigation.
Speaker 9 (32:52):
Here it goes the devil telling me it's a lie.
I didn't he says, I'm around me sales. It's all
right to Britain that you can get more done you give.
Speaker 5 (33:11):
Somebody Somewhere is a production of Rainstream Media Incorporated. Sound design, editing,
and mixing has been provided by Resonate Recordings. Original score
and voiceover work provided by Hallie Payne. Artwork provided by
Evan McGlenn and Kendall Payne. If you have any information
regarding the Jonathan Luna case, please contact us via our
(33:32):
website sbswpodcast dot com. And finally, if you enjoyed this podcast,
please rate and review us on Apple Podcasts. It really
helps and we really appreciate it.
Speaker 4 (33:47):
Thank you for listening.
Speaker 9 (33:50):
Here.
Speaker 2 (33:51):
God a hey to say, I'm sid good. Just people love.
Speaker 4 (34:03):
Eve, don't still love but need more money
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