LUTHMANN NOTE: I’ve done federal time. I can laugh about breaking a prison bookie because I remember how badly I wanted to leave. Robbie understands that. Lisa understands what the waiting does to people outside. That experience also shapes how I view litigation that puts somebody’s property or freedom at risk. Shochet’s conduct deserves the scrutiny the Bar investigation can provide. Hales’s disputed bankruptcy claims deserve examination against the evidence, including what he knew when he advanced them. I’m a defendant in related litigation he brought, and I make no secret of my position. Follow the documents. Freedom is too valuable for sloppy accusations.
Robbie Keszey remembers a prisoner who wanted Facebook to know he was living large.
The photograph had everything: a pool table, a fan of hundred-dollar bills, a cigar, and a bottle of Hennessy. According to Robbie, the man was almost home. Then the photograph reached the wrong audience.
Officers came for him. Robbie says the man landed in isolation and picked up three additional years.
The broadcast did not identify the inmate or establish the charges behind that claimed sentence extension. But Robbie’s recollection carried a lesson anyone who has done time understands: you can spend years counting down to freedom and still do something spectacularly stupid before you reach the door.
That was the territory we entered when I joined Robbie and Lisa Lee on Two Lees in a Pod. The former Swamp Brothers star had stories. So did I. Lisa had her own account of racing a courtroom clock with somebody else’s freedom hanging in the balance.
And hanging over the conversation were two very different questions: what the Florida Bar will do with the complaint against Randall Shochet, and whether the evidence behind Jeremy Hales’s bankruptcy claims can withstand scrutiny.
Robbie’s prison history comes with a federal paper trail.
The Justice Department’s December 8, 2014 announcement records his 12-month sentence, imposed three days earlier in Philadelphia. His Glades Herp Farm business partner, Robroy MacInnes, received 18 months. A jury had convicted both men in November 2013 in a prosecution involving protected timber rattlesnakes and Eastern indigo snakes.
A reptile-trafficking conviction gave the officers something to talk about. Robbie remembered their questions and his answer: “Dude, you’ve got my paperwork. What do you want me to say?”
Recognition brought another complication. An officer who knew Swamp Brothers moved Robbie into a two-man space. Robbie immediately understood how preferential treatment could look to the other prisoners.
“You just put a target on my back,” he recalled protesting.
Outside, a better room is an upgrade. Inside, it can require an explanation you never wanted to give. Robbie credited friendships he had already made with helping head off trouble.
He eventually moved from heavy machinery into the food-service warehouse. Fresh ingredients became a major development. Tomatoes, onions, peppers, avocados: the makings of a weekend burrito could become something worth anticipating.
That is part of prison’s humiliation. Your world contracts until access to an onion feels like good fortune.
Then there was the inmate with the Facebook photograph.
The details made us react because the stakes were familiar. Everybody inside knows somebody who made his own situation worse. Hearing the story after release is one thing. Watching another man’s departure disappear while you are still waiting for yours is another.
My prison business involved paperwork.
Men needed help with their cases. I knew how to work through legal documents. Favors and goods changed hands, and I joked that I became “in-house counsel for everybody.”
Then there were stamps.
Outside prison, stamps get a birthday card delivered. Inside, they can become a medium of exchange. And where prisoners have something to wager, somebody will take the action.
I told Robbie and Lisa about putting together a three-game NFL parlay and hitting everything.
“I broke the motherfucking bookie.”
According to my recollection, the man stopped taking my bets. That was probably sound risk management. My later adventures betting hockey were less informed.
Prison also supplies a bizarre cast of acquaintances. In my January 2023 Frank Report account, I described encounters with Martin Shkreli, Anthony Weiner, Peter Madoff, and Silk Road figure Roger Thomas Clark. Shkreli helped supply books. Weiner held court in the library. Their reputations arrived before them; the routines of confinement applied anyway.
Robbie’s sharper stories concerned people who could leave at the end of their shifts.
He alleged that officers helped themselves to prison supplies. He described eggs being carried to a car for an officer’s restaurant, cases of meat disappearing, and stainless-steel sheets being taken from workshop materials.
Those are Robbie’s accusations about what he says he witnessed. The broadcast supplied no investigative findings establishing the alleged thefts.
But his account explains the contempt in his voice. Prisoners were supposed to learn respect for rules from the people enforcing them. Robbie believed he was watching those same people steal.
Lisa brought us back to the people waiting outside.
She recalled learning late on a Friday, before Labor Day weekend, that Gabe faced the prospect of a year in custody. His next court date was the following business day.
She spent the weekend assembling documents. According to Lisa, they showed completed probation, paid restitution, and other information his lawyer needed.
On Tuesday morning, she arrived at the lawyer’s office determined to get the paperwork in front of somebody before the hearing.
“He has a hearing at eight thirty this morning,” she remembered insisting.
That is a different kind of countdown. While a prisoner measures the distance to release, somebody outside is trying to make sure the lawyer has the records before the judge takes the bench.
At the time of our discussion, she was planning for his return: a welcome-home surprise, a Buc-ee’s stop, and the food he wanted.
Robbie remembered giving away his blanket, pillows, shoes, and work boots before leaving with a small bag. I remembered gray prison sweats, a bus connection near Penn State, and the almost ridiculous pleasure of ordinary deli food on the way toward a halfway house.
There is darker material behind my jokes. Frank Report’s October 2023 coverage of my plea-withdrawal petition described my allegations of sexual assault, isolation, and PTSD. Those were allegations in my challenge to a state guilty plea, not findings a court had established.
I can tell a funny story about a bookie and still remember why I wanted out. Robbie understood that without needing an explanation.
Randy “Pocket Rocket” Shochet has a document of his own to address.
The September 23, 2026 Florida Bar letter, concerning File No. 2026-00,712(8B), states that the complaint against Randall Mark Shochet is being transferred to the Tallahassee Branch Office and assigned to Lauren Michelle Williams for “additional investigation.”
It also directs the parties to identify related civil, criminal, or administrative litigation. The letter warns that bar counsel or an investigator may request more information.
That is a professional problem requiring a serious response. It does not establish probable cause, suspension, or disbarment. The Bar’s published disciplinary process allows branch counsel to close a case or move it forward. The evidence determines which path follows.
My position is that Shochet’s conduct deserves close examination. The investigation is where documents and explanations must do the work.
Hales presents a separate issue. He sued me in related litigation, and readers should know that when weighing my criticism. I want his disputed creditor position in Lynette Michelle Preston’s bankruptcy examined against the underlying evidence.
Our handwriting coverage discussed examiner Curt Baggett’s opinion attributing seven disputed signs to Hales and excluding Preston. Baggett worked from copies. His opinion is subject to challenge, and it does not by itself establish a fraudulent bankruptcy claim.
The missing connection matters: what representations were made in bankruptcy, whether they were false, and whether the person making or using them knew that.
18 U.S.C. § 152(4) criminalizes knowingly and fraudulently presenting or using a false claim against a bankruptcy estate. Section 157 addresses schemes to defraud executed or concealed through specified bankruptcy filings or representations. Each authorizes up to five years’ imprisonment for an offense.
Hales could face prison if prosecutors proved conduct satisfying a criminal statute and obtained a conviction. Losing a claim, facing an adverse expert opinion, or being criticized on a broadcast does not establish those elements. The materials reviewed here establish no bankruptcy-fraud conviction against him. Not yet.
What they justify, in my view, is scrutiny. Compare the claim with the evidence. Establish who knew what. Follow the documents wherever they lead.
Robbie and I can laugh about the meals, the characters, and the bets. Neither of us confuses a good prison story with a good place to live.
When I asked whether federal prison was fun, Robbie needed two words.
“Hell no.”
Thank you to everyone who tuned into my live video! Join me for my next live video in the app.
