[music playing]
LARRY LAWTON: I was the biggest jewel
robber in the United States.
I didn't fear anything because I didn't
think I'd be alive today.
I grew up in the Bronx and we grew up in a little house.
I really started getting into crime at 12 years old.
I would work with organized crime
families in my neighborhood who were
running the ticket operation.
I would take gambling tickets around the neighborhood
so the community could bet on football games.
The money came easy, and that's how I, as a young person,
got hooked into organized crime.
And it did test you.
You had to be good.
You had to hustle.
And the more I did that, the more I liked it.
Graduated to robbing cars.
But I knew the path was a dangerous path I was on.
So I ended up going in the service at 17 years old.
I went in the United States Coast Guard.
I ended up getting out at about 25 years old
because I did seven and a half years, tried the straight
and narrow.
Didn't work.
And I got right to being a bouncer,
a loan shark, and a bookmaker.
And who takes notice?
The Gambino crime family.
And that's when I got into the bigger time stuff.
My first robbery was actually where the jewelry store owner
wanted his place robbed so he can take the insurance money
and we take the jewelry, so everybody wins.
I knew the layout of the place.
I knew what to do.
And it was a very easy job.
I made $150,000 in a half hour.
That's when I figured out, that's what I want to do.
This store looks like it's got high value.
You have to first find out if there's money in the place,
and the second step is to see if I can get away with it.
And I would jump that counter.
When I jumped that counter, I had a gun in his face.
Down!
Get down!
He'd be on the floor.
He'd freak out.
I'd tie him up.
I'd wipe out the whole jewelry store.
And then within 24 hours, all the diamonds I stole
were out of my hands and were sold.
So I robbed between $15 million and $18 million
up and down the East Coast.
I robbed over 20 stores, and I had a hell of a run.
I went from 1989 till 1996, when I got caught.
You know, how they eventually got to me is because one
of the jewelry stores that I cased,
the lady in the jewelry store ended up getting my plate.
The day I got caught, my wife at the time--
I had a 15-month-old baby.
So all of a sudden, my wife goes out, and I hear a scream.
They're coming.
I jump out of my chair.
In comes my front door, flies in,
and it's the guys in the mask and everything.
And they got guns pointed.
I turn around to go back to the outside patio
in the back of the house, and they're
coming through the patio.
And they got all ninja'd up and stuff.
Whoa.
At this time, it's like, hands up.
OK.
They convicted me on four robberies
in four different states.
The judge said 144 months, and you
don't understand what that is until you
start calculating in your head.
That's 12 years.
It's 12 years of your life you just lost.
And I was going to the United States Penitentiary, Atlanta.
It was the worst prison at the time in the country.
At the time, it was 2,000 inmates.
880 had life sentences.
Within the prison system, things happen.
But you go to the hole for the littlest thing,
and the hole is a prison within the prison.
It's literally an 8-foot by 10-foot cell with a steel
toilet and bed, and they don't let you out.
I ended up going to the hole for three years out of my 11.
You go crazy.
You think of suicide.
You think of your family.
You think of your kids all the time.
And it's a place I don't want anybody to ever see.
So I did a lot of time in the hole.
And after getting out, I started studying the law,
and I got very good at the law.
And I ended up attaining my paralegal degree in prison.
I was getting close to getting out,
and I kept seeing young people come in.
And I'm thinking how they ruined their lives.
21, 22-year-old people coming to prison.
They got to associate with some kind of gang for survival.
And all of a sudden, they might have to stab
someone to save their life.
I said to myself when I got out of prison,
I got to help young people realize
this is not the way to go.
I ended up getting out of prison on August 24, 2007.
Never forget the day.
I was like, free, free at last.
But at that point, I didn't know what
I was gonna do with my life.
A friend of mine comes to me and says,
hey, Larry, I need a favor.
I caught my 16-year-old smoking weed, and he said, F you, dad.
Where have you ever been?
So I got pictures together of me in prison with gang members,
and I took these pictures over to his house,
started talking to the kid.
I said, you told your father where the F you been?
Let me show you where the F I just came from.
From there, I ended up developing
the nationally-accepted Reality Check program, which now has
the highest success rate in the United States
with helping young people make better choices
and stay out of prison.
It's now in court systems all over the world,
and police agencies use it, as well.
And I love the fact that now I could
help them with my experiences and my knowledge of life.
I also help jewelry store owners and police investigate
and catch criminals.
Whenever there's any kind of robbery or major robbery,
I'm approached by either the jewelry companies or the police
to see if I can pick up on something different.
And then in 2013, I was recognized on the floor
of the United States Congress for helping young people
and helping police agencies.
And it is very humbling to be accepted
as one of the good guys.
They feel that now there's a purpose.
And I think we all need to look back at ourselves when we
were younger and look and use our experiences
to try to help people.
I often tell people who are in trouble, the best thing you can
do is help another person, because you're
actually helping yourself when you're helping others.