The DA gets up and the DA is never like friendly like this. They say we recommend no sentencing. She said something. The judge starts screaming at the probation officer and the district attorney. I was like, what the [__] is this now? I'm like maybe he ain't as crazy as I think he is. So she's going off. So next thing we're two hours into this thing. I'm like, cancel my day. There's like an intermission in the middle of this probationary hearing. The judge is in her glory. Jenice Brinkley, one of the worst human beings on this planet, okay? Shout out to her. Horrible human being. Loved controlling his life. Loved locking people up. Didn't want to do the fair thing. Just wanted to lock people up. So that's crazy.
We go. We're like, it's like two hours into it. We just walk to the bathroom. Everyone had to take a leak. And he says like, 'They're going to lock me up.' You are not getting locked up. I walk back in, like a bunch more cops come in and they're like, Mick's counsel's like, 'Hey, can you speak on his behalf?' And I get up and I tell the story about, hey, we've known each other three, four years. This guy's been with my mom a bunch of times. My daughter, like he's around all these people. You're thinking you're only gone for a half an hour, it turns into you're there for hours.
This is two and a half hours into this, four-hour [__]. And I give like this impassioned—like I'm a pretty passionate guy. I talk about how much I love him. Look, I know he's not perfect, but like, who is perfect? Like, he's creating jobs. He's a great guy, you know. Is he perfect? No. But does he deserve to be locked up? Hell no. Like, let this guy go, you know, create jobs for people. Let him go build his community. The woman never looked at me once. An hour and a half later, 5:00 p.m., of course, then it was time for her to go home for the day. So, four hours into this thing, she sends him to two to four years in state prison for popping a wheelie.
For popping a wheelie. You couldn't believe that.
Hold on. He had tears, you know, Mick wants—he's a rapper, wants to be big. His eyes are watering up. I'm like crying like a little [__]. Okay. And like I watch him taking his watch off and giving his wallet, giving this [__] to his mom. He's like, I wore two pair of underwear. That's what happens when you go to jail. I'm like, [__] no. So I didn't know Desiree Perez at all when this happens. Like I met her for the first time in the court that day. I'm like, hey, like I said to his mom, I'm getting him out of prison. I want to stop—I'm getting him out of prison. I have no idea what I'm doing. Des says, 'Hey, I'm Desiree Perez. I run Roc Nation. You know, I'm going to get him out of prison.' I said, 'Great. Let's work together.' And Jay-Z and Des stepped up in the biggest of ways. At the end of the day, there's nobody better than Des. And you know, we just, you know, we kind of did it together. She did more of the work, but we did it together. We didn't stop till five and a half months later, he got this—the Supreme Court of Pennsylvania ordered his release and ultimately all the charges got dropped.
You know, it just shows you, now this led to not only a business and a major friendship with Des and Jay-Z, but it also led to the reform where you got involved with freeing people that were... tell us about the reform.
Look, I'm an entrepreneur. So, at the end of the day, when you see [__] that's not right, it's kind of like your instincts to kind of deal with it. So, I remember Josh Shapiro is now the governor of Pennsylvania. He kept saying to me during this thing, you know, I know you just want to get Meek out of prison, but like there's so many other people that are impacted by this. You guys got to—when he gets out, you guys got to do something about this. Soon as he got out of prison, myself, Meek, Jay, Robert Kraft, Des talked and said like, 'We got to fix the underlying problem.' So we right away knew we were going to create the Reform Alliance. We've now created a pathway. So there's four and a half million people that were on probation at the time in 2018 when he got out. We've now—I mean we've created a pathway for more than 1.1 million people to get off of probation fraud by changing the underlying broken laws. And I got to tell you something, we're humbled to do it. It was a problem that needed addressing. We've made a lot of progress during different political environments too. Republicans, Democrats, all working together. It's just something that needed to be done. And you know, we built a great organization. The organization, by the way, it's well funded. It's got a great team led by Jessica Jackson. And you know, we're going to keep fighting tirelessly for kind of the voiceless. And you know, I'm proud that we started—and at the end of the day it was inspired by Meek. It was started by Meek and Jay and Robert, Des, myself, but you know, it's off to the races and we're proud of it.
I got to commend you for that. And one of your superpowers is you're a very humble guy. And no matter what you hear, how much money Michael Rubin got, like when I walk—so say I go to the white party. Who is this security? Like is this like the secret... You got a different kind of security. Yo, I just walked to the bathroom now. I seen—I said, 'There goes these guys again. What is this? Like twenty thousand in our security? This is a different security.'
Well, look, we have... No, I'm telling you, one of the things with me, we love having people of all backgrounds coming together and you have, you know, all—I have friends that are Democrats, Republicans, every variation in between. Like, I don't, by the way, I'm not into politics at all. Like, I think politics divides us and I hate—like I'm all about bringing people together. So, I'm just not a political person. But, by the way, there were a lot of FBI and Secret Service. Josh Shapiro's coming here today. Kathy Hochul's coming here today. Kai Trump's coming here today. Like we're friends with all of them. Like look, the way the United Nations fights—I like that. I don't—
